LECTURES 

ON  THE 

ELEMENTARY  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
FEELING  AND  ATTENTION- 


BY 

EDWARD  BRADFORD  TITCHENER 


Netn  gorfe 

THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1908 

All  rights  reserved 

3787? 


Copyright,  1908, 

bt  the  macmillan  company. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  July,  1908. 


Norfajoob  i^rcgg 

J.  8.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


T53 


EDMUND   CLARK  SANFORD 


PREFACE 

The  eight  lectures  which  make  up  this  little 
book  were  read  during  my  tenure  of  a  non- 
resident lectureship  in  psychology  at  Columbia 
University,  February,  1908.  I  have  printed 
them  as  they  were  written  for  delivery,  except 
that  quotations  from  the  French  and  German 
have,  for  accuracy's  sake,  been  restored  from 
English  translation  to  their  original  form/ 

I  have  not  been  able,  either  in  the  lectures 
themselves  or  in  the  appended  notes,  to  take 
account  of  all  that  is  important  in  the  current 
psychology  of  feeling  and  attention.  Indeed, 
my  sins  of  omission  are  obvious.  I  can  only 
say  that  they  weigh  heavily  upon  my  scientific 
conscience,  and  that,  were  it  not  for  other  and 
imperative  claims  upon  my  time,  I  should  have 
delayed  publication  until  I  had  done  what  I 
could  to  correct  them. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  my  wife;  to  my  col- 
league, Professor  I.  M.  Bentley,  who  has  read 

*  Professor  Pillsbury's  English  work  on  Attention  reached  me 
too  late  for  reference  in  the  text,  though  I  have  cited  it  in  the 
notes. 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

the  manuscript  of  the  book  and  during  its  prep- 
aration gave  me  unsparingly  of  his  time  and 
counsel;  to  Professor  J.  McK.  Cattell,  of  Co- 
lumbia University,  whose  invitation  prompted 
the  writing  of  the  lectures ;  and  to  many  kindly 
critics  among  my  hearers.  I  have  dedicated 
the  volume  to  Professor  E.  C.  Sanford,  of  Clark 
University,  my  close  friend  and  trusted  mentor 
of  the  past  sixteen  years.  Would  that  it  were 
worthier  of  his  acceptance  ! 

Cornell  Heights,  Ithaca,  N.Y., 
March,  1908. 


"> 


CONTENTS 


LECTtTEB 

I.     Sensation  and  its  Attributes 

. 

PAGE 

3 

II.     Sensation  and  Affection :  the  Criteria  of  Affection       33 

III.     The  Affections  as  Gefiihlsem'pfindungen 

81 

IV.     The  Tridimensional  Theory  of  Feeling 

.      125 

V.     Attention  as  Sensory  Clearness    . 

.      171 

VI.     The  Laws  of  Attention :  I 

.     209 

VII.     The  Laws  of  Attention :  II 

251 

VIII.     Affection  and  Attention 

285 

Notes  to  Lecture  I 

321 

Notes  to  Lecture  II 

328 

Notes  to  Lecture  III 

338 

Notes  to  Lecture  IV 

345 

Notes  to  Lecture  V 

352 

Notes  to  Lecture  VI 

360 

Notes  to  Lecture  VII 

374 

Notes  to  Lecture  VIII 

385 

Index  of  Names    . 

393 

Index  of  Subjects 

397 

IX 


I 

SENSATION   AND  ITS   ATTRIBUTES 


LECTURE  I 

SENSATION   AND   ITS   ATTRIBUTES 

THE  system'  of  psychology  rests  upon  a  three- 
fold foundation:  the  doctrine  of  sensation 
and  image/  the  elementary  doctrine  of  feeling, 
and  the  doctrine  of  attention.  Our  views  of  sen- 
sation, of  feeling,  and  of  attention  determine,  if 
we  are  logical,  the  whole  further  course  of  our 
psychological  thought  and  exposition.  Where 
systems  differ  by  anything  more  than  relative 
emphasis  and  fulness  of  treatment,  their  differ- 
ences invariably  lead  us  back  to  the  consideration 
of  these  fundamental  doctrines.  It  is,  therefore, 
more  than  important  —  it  is  necessary  —  that  the 
student  of  psychology  have  a  firm  grasp  of  the 
issues  involved  and  a  comprehensive  knowledge 
of  the  relevant  facts. 

These  requirements  are,  however,  by  no  means 
easy  of  fulfilment.  Look,  first  of  all,  at  sen- 
sation. We  know  a  great  deal  about  sensation 
itself,  as  an  elementary  process ;  we  know  a  great 
deal  about  the  simpler  syntheses ;  and  we  have 
working  theories  in  most  of  the  sense-depart- 
ments.    On    all   these  points   we    owe   a   debt, 

3 


4        SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

which  we  must  gratefully  acknowledge,  to  physi- 
ological interest  and  physiological  equipment. 
Methods  and  results,  together  with  apparatus 
that  embodied  methods  and  assured  results,  were 
at  our  disposal  as  soon  as  we  had  the  skill  to 
use  and  the  funds  to  acquire.  We  have  bor- 
rowed freely  from  physiology,  and  we  have  turned 
the  loan  to  such  good  account  that  physiology  is 
not  ashamed,  on  occasion,  to  borrow  again  from 
us.  Nevertheless,  with  all  the  advantage  that 
comes  of  an  experimental  tradition,  and  with  all 
the  facilities  for  work  afforded  by  the  local  dif- 
ferentiation of  the  sense-organs,  we  are  still  far 
removed,  in  this  sphere  of  sensation,  from  finality 
or  general  agreement.  A  mental  element  can 
be  defined  only  by  the  enumeration  of  its  attri- 
butes. Turn,  now,  to  the  table  of  contents  of 
the  Physiologische  Psychologies  and  you  find  but 
two  attributes  of  sensation  :  intensity  and  quality. 
Turn  to  Ebbinghaus'  Grundziige,  and  you  find 
that  sensations  have  both  special  and  general 
attributes,  and  that  the  latter  include  such  ap- 
parently heterogeneous  things  as  extension  and 
duration,  movement  and  change,  likeness  and 
difference,  unity  and  multiplicity.^ 

But  if  there  is  difference  of  opinion  as  re- 
gards sensation,  what  shall  we  say  of  feeling 
and  attention  ?     The  unsettled  state  of  the  psy- 


INTRODUCTION  5 

chology  of  feeling  is  notorious.  Here  are  prob- 
lems on  which,  as  it  would  almost  seem,  the 
trained  and  the  untrained,  the  professional  and 
the  amateur  psychologist  exchange  ideas  on  equal 
terms ;  here  is  a  field  in  which  one  man's  casual 
opinion  is  as  valuable  as  another  man's  reasoned 
conclusion,  in  which  a  general  impression  is 
worth  as  much  as  an  experimental  result. 
And,  what  is  worse,  the  path  of  inference  is  so 
precarious,  and  the  experimental  results  are  as 
yet  so  few,  that  psychologists  von  Fach  are  them- 
selves tempted  to  overhasty  generalisation,  and 
become  dogmatic  before  criticism  has  done  its 
work.  Does  not  Wundt  base  the  psychology  of 
language  on  his  theory  of  affective  pluralism  ?  ^ 
Nor  is  attention  in  much  better  case :  the  first 
sentence  of  the  preface  to  Pillsbury's  recent  book 
refers  to  the  '  chaotic  state  of  current  theories  of 
attention.'  ^  It  is,  perhaps,  true  that  the  prob- 
lems of  attention  are  less  widely  discussed,  have 
attracted  less  general  notice,  than  the  problems 
of  feeling.  If,  however,  this  is  the  fact,  the  prob- 
lems are  none  the  less  insistent ;  and  their  neg- 
lect by  the  educated  public  means  simply  that 
popular  psychology  long  ago  worked  out  a  theory 
of  attention  for  its  own  use,  and  so  far  has  not 
felt  the  need  of  reconsideration. 

It  follows,  plainly  enough,  that  I  cannot  in 


6        SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

these  Lectures  give  you  any  complete  or  finished 
account  of  the  psychology  of  affection  and 
attention ;  if  time  allowed,  the  nature  of  the  case 
would  forbid.  It  follows  also  that  my  account, 
such  as  it  is,  will  of  necessity  take  on  an  individ- 
ual colouring.  It  would  be  absurd  to  make  the 
claim  of  impartiality  when  all  one's  efforts, 
whether  of  criticism  or  of  construction,  are  de- 
termined by  training  and  temperament.  Be- 
sides, the  attitude  of  impartiality  is  irrelevant, 
so  long  as  every  set  of  observations  is  coupled 
with  the  name  of  the  observer,  and  every  ob- 
server has  his  private  interpretation.  I  shall, 
however,  keep  as  closely  as  possible  to  docu- 
ments and  to  experimental  results;  and  where 
I  venture  a  personal  opinion,  I  shall  offer  it  as 
an  opinion  and  as  nothing  more. 

So  much  may  be  said  by  way  of  general  in- 
troduction. But  now,  before  we  come  to  close 
quarters  with  affection  and  attention,  we  must 
give  a  little  time  to  sensation.  This  special 
introduction  is  necessary  for  the  reason  that, 
throughout  the  following  discussions,  sensa- 
tion will  be  our  standard  of  reference.  When 
we  ask  whether  the  affective  processes  show  dis- 
tinctive features,  w^e  are  in  search  of  features  that 
distinguish  affection  from  sensation;  when  we 
speak  of  the  laws  of  attention,  w^e  have  always 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PS YCHOPH YSICS        7 

in  mind  a  distribution  or  redistribution  of  the 
sense-processes  that  make  up  the  consciousness 
of  the  moment.  Hence  it  is  important  that 
we  understand  clearly  what  sensation  is :  or  at 
any  rate,  that  we  frame  a  working  definition 
of  sensation,  adequate  to  our  present  purpose 
and  free  of  ambiguity. 

It  will  help  to  clear  the  ground  if  we  distin- 
guish, at  the  outset,  between  the  sensation  or 
sensory  element  of  psychology  and  the  sensory 
element  of  psychophysics.  The  sensation  of 
psychology  is  any  sense-process  that  cannot  be 
further  analysed  by  introspection :  every  one 
of  the  forty  thousand  lights  and  colours  that 
we  can  see,  every  one  of  the  eleven  thousand 
tones  that  we  can  hear,  is  a  psychological  sen- 
sation. The  sensations  of  psychophysics,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  the  sense-correlates  of  the 
elementary  excitatory  processes  posited  by  a 
theory  of  vision  or  audition  or  what  not.  Thus 
the  six  Urfarben  of  Hering's  theory  of  vision  — 
black  and  white,  blue  and  yellow,  carmine  and 
bluish  green  —  are,  if  that  theory  be  accepted, 
the  psychophysical  elements  of  vision ;  they 
are  the  sources  of  the  whole  series  of  psycho- 
logical elements.  These  latter  are,  none  the  less, 
psychologically  elementary :  a  light  unsaturated 


8         SENSATION  AND   ITS   ATTRIBUTES 

yellowish  green,  while  psychophysically  com- 
pound, is  introspectively  simple;  it  cannot 
be  factored  into  a  white,  a  yellow,  and  a  green, 
as  a  chord  may  be  factored  into  a  number  of 
simple  tones.  Similarly,  if  we  could  accept 
Macli's  notion  of  dull  and  bright  components 
in  tonal  sensation,^  we  should  have  only  two 
psychophysical  elements  in  audition;  whereas 
the  Helmholtz  theory  gives  us  parallel  series 
of  psychophysical  and  of  psychological  sensa- 
tions. Here,  as  elsewhere  in  experimental  psy- 
chology, the  failure  to  distinguish  between 
psychophysics  and  psychology  proper  has  led 
to  much  confused  argument.® 

We  are  now  concerned  with  the  sensory 
element  of  psychology.  And  a  mental  element, 
as  was  said  above,  must  be  defined  by  an  enu- 
meration of  its  attributes.  What,  then,  are  the 
attributes  of  sensation  ? 

An  attribute  of  sensation,  as  commonly  de- 
fined, is  any  aspect  or  moment  or  dimension 
of  sensation  which  fulfils  the  two  conditions  of 
inseparability  and  independent  variability.  The 
attributes  of  any  sensation  are  always  given 
when  the  sensation  itself  is  given,  and  the  anni- 
hilation of  any  attribute  carries  with  it  the 
annihilation,  the  disappearance,  of  the  sensa- 
tion itself ;  this  is  what  is  meant  by  the  *  insepara- 


THE  DEFINITION  OF  ATTRIBUTE  9 

bility'  of  the  attribute.  A  sensation  that  has 
no  quality,  no  intensity,  no  duration,  etc.,  is 
not  a  sensation;  it  is  nothing.  Conversely,  if 
a  sensation  is  to  exist,  it  must  come  into  being 
with  all  of  its  attributes;  we  cannot  have  an 
intensive  sensation  that  is  dispossessed  of  qual- 
ity. These  statements  are  evidently  true,  and 
so  far  the  definition  cannot  be  questioned.  But 
we  are  told,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  attri- 
butes of  sensation  are  independently  variable; 
quality  may  be  changed  while  intensity  remains 
constant,  intensity  changed  while  quality  re- 
mains constant,  and  so  on  throughout  the  list. 
Is  this  statement  true  ?  Relatively,  yes :  true 
for  certain  cases  and  under  certain  conditions. 
If  it  were  not  true,  —  true,  within  limits,  for  the 
attributes  of  intensity  and  quality,  as  originally 
recognised,  —  how  could  it  have  been  made  ? 
what  could  have  suggested  it  ?  It  is  matter  of 
observation  that  the  intensity  of  tone  or  noise 
may  be  varied  while  the  quality  is  the  same, 
that  warm  and  cold  may  change  in  degree  with- 
out change  in  kind.  Absolutely  true,  however, 
the  statement  is  not.  In  certain  cases  and  be- 
yond certain  limits  the  variation  of  one  attribute 
implies  the  concomitant  variation  of  another; 
and  in  extreme  instances  the  separation  of  the 
two  can  be  effected,  if  at  all,  only  by  a  sort  of 


10       SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

analogical  abstraction,  —  by  neglect,  we  will 
say,  of  quality,  and  by  direction  of  attention  to 
what,  in  the  light  of  previous  experience,  we  con- 
ceive to  be  intensity.  I  come  to  the  concrete 
in  a  moment.  What  I  now  wish  to  emphasise 
is  the  fact  that  there  are  bound  attributes  as 
w^ell  as  free,  and  that  the  test  of  independent 
•variability,  useful  enough  for  a  preliminary 
survey,  must  be  applied  with  caution  when  we 
demand  accuracy  of  detail. 

Having  thus  amended  the  definition  of  'attri- 
bute,' we  might  proceed  at  once  to  enumerate 
the  distinguishable  attributes  of  the  various 
classes  of  sensation.  The  result  would  be  a 
list,  longer  or  shorter  according  to  the  sense- 
department,  in  which  term  followed  term  in 
conventional  order,  —  an  empirical  list,  in  which 
every  term  stood  apart  from  every  other,  and 
all  terms  were  on  the  same  level.  I  think  that 
we  shall  do  better  to  cast  about  for  some  prin- 
ciple of  classification ;  and  I  have  seemed  to 
find  such  a  principle  in  Mliller's  distinction  of 
intensive  and  qualitative  change.  A  sensation 
changes  intensively,  Mtiller  says,  when  it  moves 
along  the  shortest  path  to  or  from  the  zero- 
point ;  i+  changes  qualitatively  when  it  moves  in 
a  diivction  that  neither  carries  it  towards  nor 
withdraws  it  from  the  zero-point.^     If  we  gen- 


QUALITATIVE  ATTRIBUTES:    VISION     11 

eralise  these  statements,  we  may  group  all  the 
attributes  of  sensation  under  the  two  headings, 
qualitative  and  intensive.  I  should,  for  instance, 
rank  as  intensive  attributes,  in  the  broad  sense, 
degree  or  intensity  proper,  duration,  extension, 

and  clearness.     Duration  varies  between  a  limi- 

«■ . — — 

nal  value  and  the  maximum  set  by  adaptation 
or  fatigue;  extension  varies  between  a  liminal 
value  and  the  maximum  set  by  the  boundaries 
of  the  field  of  sense ;  and  clearness,  too,  varies 
between  a  liminal  value  and  the  maximum  set 
by  the  limit  of  attention al  concentration.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  regard  what  is  ordinarily 
termed  the  quality  of  sensation  as,  in  several 
cases,  a  complex  of  distinguishable  qualitative 
attributes. 

We  will  take  the  qualitative  attributes  first, 
and  we  will  begin  with  vision.  Visual  sensa- 
tions fall,  for  psychology,  into  the  two  great 
classes  of  sensations  of  light  and  sensations  of 
colour;  the  whole  system  finds  representation 
in  the  double  pyramid,  which  is  itself  a  purely 
psychological  construction.  The  sensations  of 
light  need  not  detain  us.  The  sensations  of 
colour,  however,  are  interesting  in  that  they 
have  no  less  than  three  qualitative  attribute- 
A  given  colour  may  be  varied  in  hue  or  c/rved 


12       SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 


tone,  in  tint  or  brightness,  and  in  chroma  or 
saturation;  and  reference  to  the  colour  pyra- 
mid will  show  that,  within  limits,  these  three 

attributes,  hue, 
tint,  and  chroma, 
are  independent 
variables,  —  so 
that  we  may 
change  hue  while 
G  tint  and  chroma 
remain  the  same, 
change  tint  with- 
out changing  hue 
and  chroma,  and 
change  chroma 
with  constancy  of 
hue  and  tint. 
The  limits  are  set, 
of  course,  by  the  form  of  the  double  pyramid, 
which,  as  I  have  said,  is  an  empirical,  psycho- 
logical construction.  But  here  are  three  dis- 
tinguishable attributes  under  the  currently  single 
heading  of  quality. 

When  we  turn  to  audition,  we  are  on  more 
debatable  ground.  I  myself  believe  that  tonal 
pensations  show  a  qualitative  duality,  —  that 
a  ^  quality  of  tone  is  a  resultant  of  the  two 
withbutes  known   respectively  as  pitch  and  as 


BK 
Fig.    1.    The  Colour   Pyramid.  —  H.  Eb- 
binghaus,     Grundziige    der    Psychologic,    i., 
1905,  199. 


QUALITATIVE  ATTRIBUTES:  AUDITION     13 

voluminousness  (Stumpf's  Tongrosse).  I  dare 
say  that,  at  first  thought,  it  seems  far-fetched, 
even  a  little  ridiculous,  to  make  volume  a  quali- 
tative attribute,  especially  in  view  of  the  uses  to 
which  it  has  been  put  in  systematic  psychology. 
But  I  would  remind  you,  in  the  first  place,  that 
we  are  inveterately  addicted  to  spatial  meta- 
phors, and  that  the  term  *  pitch'  contains  a  spa- 
tial reference  no  less  obvious,  on  consideration, 
than  that  of  *  volume.'  Pitch  means  height, 
elevation;  the  German  equivalent  is  Tonhohe, 
the  French  hauteur;  and  in  characterising 
pitch,  we  speak,  in  English,  of  high,  low,  deep 
tones.  Yet  nobody  nowadays  would  dream 
of  making  pitch  an  intensive  attribute.  Now- 
adays, no!  —  but  listen  to  Fechner.  "Bei  den 
Tonen,"  he  says,  *'hat  die  Hohe,  obwohl  als 
Qualitat  des  Tones  fassbar,  doch  auch  eine 
quantitative  Seite,  sofern  wir  eine  grossere  und 
geringere  Hohe  unterscheiden  konnen."  ^  There 
the  spatial  metaphor  was  at  work.  But  if  this 
spatial  reference  is  to  be  ignored  in  the  case  of 
pitch,  why  should  we  pay  regard  to  it  in  the  case 
of  volume  ?  May  it  not  be  the  fact,  simply, 
that  the  idea  of  tonal  voluminousness  is  less 
familiar  to  us  than  that  of  tonal  pitch,  that  we 
have  observed  the  attribute  of  volume  less  fre- 
quently or  less  accurately  than  we  have  observed 


14       SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

height  and  depth,  —  and  so  that  we  are  misled 
by  the  name  ?  Secondly,  I  would  remind  you 
that,  if  we  are  to  turn  the  attribute  of  volume  to 
account  for  a  theory  of  space-perception,  we  must 
be  extremely  careful  to  take  it  as  what  it  intro- 
spectively  is,  an  attribute  of  tonal  sensation,  and 
not  to  surround  it  with  visual  or  tactual  asso- 
ciates. I  may  illustrate  by  a  quotation  from 
James,  though  James  is  not  dealing  primarily 
with  tones.  **Loud  sounds,"  he  says,  *'have 
a  certain  enormousness  of  feeling.  It  is  im- 
possible to  conceive  of  the  explosion  of  a  cannon 
as  filling  a  small  space.  In  general,  sounds 
seem  to  occupy  all  the  room  between  us  and 
their  source;  and  in  the  case  of  certain  ones, 
the  cricket's  song,  the  whistling  of  the  wind,  the 
roaring  of  the  surf,  or  of  a  distant  railway 
train,  to  have  no  definite  starting-point."  ^  These 
statements  are  offered  as  evidence  of  the  general 
principle  that  a  spatial  attribute,  extensity,  volu- 
minousness,  vastness,  is  inherent  in  all  sensa- 
tions without  exception.  But  the  sensation,  as 
elementary  process,  knows  and  says  nothing 
whatever  of  its  stimulus  or  its  organ  or  its  object. 
An  explosive  noise,  considered  as  sensation,  is 
not  the  noise  of  a  cannon  or  of  anything  else; 
a  continuative  noise,  hiss  or  whistle  or  roar, 
considered  as  sensation,  has  nothing  to  do  with 


QUALITATIVE  ATTRIBUTES:    AUDITION     15 

a  starting-point  in  objective  space,  definite  or 
indefinite/^  The  evidence  must  be  sought  else- 
where, —  sought  in  sensation  proper,  under  rigid 
introspective  conditions,  and  sought,  more  es- 
pecially, under  conditions  that  rule  out  the  com- 
plicating attribute  of  intensity,  —  for  *loud' 
sounds  may  be  enormous  in  one  way,  and  w^eak 
sounds  in  quite  a  different  w^ay. 

Make,  then,  the  experiment  for  yourselves. 
Take  a  series  of  tuning-forks,  standing  on  their 
resonance  boxes,  —  a  series  that  extends  from 
bass  to  treble,  —  and  listen  to  their  tones. 
There  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt  that  volume 
is  an  attribute  of  tonal  sensation.  There  may, 
however,  I  think,  be  a  very  considerable  doubt 
whether  the  volume  is  in  any  real  sense  spatial. 
Choose  your  adjectives.  The  deep  tones  are 
bigger,  larger,  not  more  massive,  perhaps,  but 
more  diffuse ;  the  high  tones  are  smaller,  thin- 
ner, sharper.  The  spatial  reference  lies  very 
near.  Still,  when  you  say  more  diffuse,  thin- 
ner, sharper,  you  refer  to  more  than  space- 
form  or  space-extension ;  there  is  a  hint  in  the 
words  of  a  difference  of  texture.  Try  now  the 
terms  milder,  softer,  for  the  deep  tones,  and 
shriller,  harder,  for  the  high;  do  they  not 
fit  the  facts  ?  Surely,  volume  is  not  an  in- 
tensive attribute,  a  mere  bulkiness  that  ran2;es 


IG       SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

between  the  extremes  of  pin-point  concentra- 
tion and  all-pervading  vastness,  but  a  qualita- 
tive attribute,  moving  between  the  extremes  of 
mild  and  shrill.  Volume  and  pitch  are  to  the 
tonal  sensation  what  hue  and  tint  and  chroma 
are  to  the  sensation  of  colour;  and  the  attri- 
butes are  independently  variable,  in  the  sense 
that  at  the  two  ends  of  the  scale  volume  changes 
more  quickly  than  pitch,  while  over  the  middle 
region  it  changes  more  slowly/^ 

Little  can  be  said,  at  present,  of  the  sensations 
of  noise.  Both  the  explosive  noise  (the  pop  of 
a  soap-bubble,  the  sharp  drop  of  a  wooden 
block  upon  a  wooden  table)  and  the  continua- 
tive  noise  (the  hiss  of  escaping  steam),  if  heard 
singly,  appear  simple  to  introspection.  If,  how- 
ever, we  make  the  observation  serial,  we  can 
distinguish  an  attribute  of  pitch  and  a  concomi- 
tant noisiness.  The  question  then  arises  whether 
pitch  is  a  constituent  of  noise  quality,  or  whether 
it  is  due  to  the  admixture  of  tone.  Noisiness 
itself  seems  to  remain  constant  over  fairly  wide 
regions  of  the  scale  of  pitch ;  but  nothing  more 
definite  can  be  said  about  it. 

The  qualitative  attribute  presents  no  difficulty 
in  the  spheres  of  taste,  smell,  and  temperature. 
It  is  otherwise  with  cutaneous  pressure,  cutane- 
ous pain,  and  many  of  the  organic  sensations. 


QUALITATIVE  ATTRIBUTES:  PRESSURE     17 

Suppose  that  a  well-defined  and  responsive 
pressure  spot  is  stimulated  with  increasing  de- 
grees of  intensity.  We  get  at  first,  with  the 
weakest  stimulus,  a  sensation  of  tickle.  At 
moderate  stimulation,  this  passes  over  into 
pressure;  either  a  quivering,  wavery  pressure, 
or  a  hard,  'cylindrical'  pressure.  If  the  in- 
tensity of  stimulus  is  still  further  increased,  but 
not  carried  to  the  point  at  which  subcutaneous 
tissue  becomes  involved,  we  have  the  Gold- 
scheider  sensation  of  'granular'  pressure.  I  am 
not  now  concerned  with  psychophysical  ques- 
tions, but  with  psychological ;  and  the  peculiar- 
ity of  these  observations,  from  the  psychological 
side,  is  that  the  qualities  just  mentioned  some- 
times overlap.  I  have  not  noticed,  it  is  true, 
any  overlapping  of  the  granular  by  the  cylin- 
drical pressure.  But  the  ticklishness  of  weak 
stimulation  is  often  sensed  along  with  the  differ- 
ent quality  of  quivering  pressure,  and  this  again 
may  at  times  be  sensed  alongside  of  the  Gold- 
scheider  granular  pressure.  Suppose,  again, 
that  a  pain  spot  is  similarly  stimulated.  We  get 
at  first,  with  the  weakest  stimulus,  a  sensation 
of  itch.  At  moderate  stimulation,  this  passes 
over  into  prick  or  sting;  and  with  further 
increase  of  the  intensity  of  stimulus,  into  cuta- 
neous pain.     And  here,  as  before,  there  is  over- 


18       SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

lapping.  A  sting  may  be  an  itchy  sting,  and 
a  pain  may  be  a  stinging  pain. 

The  same  thing  holds,  apparently,  of  certain 
kinsesthetic  sensations.  The  dragging,  tired  sen- 
sation which  is  probably  attributable  to  the 
muscle-spindles  passes  through  a  sore,  achy 
stage  into  dull  pain :  the  three  stages  are  intro- 
spectively  distinguishable;  but  there  is,  never- 
theless, an  overlapping.  The  strain  sensation 
which  seems  to  be  due  to  stimulation  of  the  Golgi 
spindles  in  tendon  also  passes  into  dull  pain  by 
gradual  transition  and  overlapping  of  quality. 

Finally,  I  am  inclined  to  think  —  though  I 
say  this  with  greater  reserve  —  that  the  same 
thing  holds  in  the  case  of  alimentary  sensations. 
Isolate  hunger  and  nausea,  at  fairly  low  inten- 
sities, and  you  have  a  dull  pressure.  The  same 
dull  pressure  ?  It  would  be  overhasty  to  assert 
a  precise  identity ;  but,  at  any  rate,  the  likeness 
revealed  by  analysis  is  surprising  when  we  re- 
member the  gross  difference  between  the  hungry 
and  the  nauseated  consciousness.  It  looks  as 
if,  with  increase  of  intensity  of  stimulus,  a  second 
qualitative  factor  —  possibly  a  group  of  quali- 
tative factors  —  comes  into  play  in  the  two 
cases,  differentiating  sensations  which,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  intensive  scale,  are  so  nearly 
alike  as  to  run  the  risk  of  identification.^^ 


THE  INTENSIVE  ATTRIBUTES  10 

At  this  point  you  may  very  well  object  that 
I  am  confusing  two  distinct  things :  the  fusion 
of  qualitatively  different  sensations,  and  the 
confluence  of  different  qualitative  attributes  in 
one  and  the  same  sensation.  Tiredness,  you 
may  say,  does  not  pass  over  into  pain,  but  is 
coloured  by,  fused  with,  a  pain  sensation ;  the 
hungry  and  the  nauseated  consciousnesses  are 
formations  of  great  complexity,  and  imply  the 
fusion  of  a  large  number  of  qualitatively  differ- 
ent sensations.  That  may  be  true.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  think  that  psychology  has  taken 
the  simplicity  of  the  qualitative  attribute  in  too 
dogmatic  a  spirit.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  sensation  of  colour  is  qualitatively  compound ; 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  I  believe,  about  the  ob- 
servations just  described  in  the  spheres  of  pres- 
sure and  cutaneous  pain.  And  there  is  no  reason 
a  "priori  why  the  organic  sensations  should  fol- 
low the  type  of  taste  and  smell  rather  than  that 
of  touch.  Even,  then,  if  you  do  not  accept  the 
conclusions  that  I  have  suggested,  you  will 
perhaps  be  ready  to  admit  that  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  work  still  to  be  done  before  we  can  make 
out  a  final  list  of  the  sense-qualities. 

We  may  now  go  on  to  consider  the  intensive 
attributes  of  sensation,   and  we  may  start  out 


20       SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

with  intensity  proper.  Intensity  has  been  so 
exhaustively  discussed,  in  connection  with  the 
methods  of  quantitative  psychology,  that  it  is 
not  necessary  to  enter  into  details.  Let  me  re- 
mark, how^ever,  that  the  attribute  is,  in  practice, 
much  less  free  than  it  is  sometimes  made  in 
theory.  I  have  already  given  instances  from 
the  cutaneous  senses  and  possible  instances  from 
the  kinsesthetic.  But  even  in  the  case  of  sounds, 
those  who  have  worked  with  the  Fechner  pen- 
dulum or  with  the  gravity  phonometer  know 
that,  beyond  narrow  limits,  independent  varia- 
tion of  intensity  is  exceedingly  difficult. 

The  classical  difficulty  arises  in  the  sphere 
of  vision.  Hering  long  ago  denied  the  attribute 
of  intensity  "im  iiblichen  Sinne  des  Wortes" 
to  the  sensations  of  the  black- white  series. 
Hillebrand,  in  1889,  declares  that  intensive 
differences  do  not  appear  anywhere  in  the  do- 
main of  visual  sensation,  though  there  may  be 
a  constant  intensity  that  is  never  noticed  and 
therefore  cannot  be  empirically  demonstrated. 
Kiilpe,  in  1893,  writes  that  *' intensity  cannot 
be  ascribed  to  sensations  of  sight."  Hering 
repeats,  in  1907,  that  the  "Begriff  der  Inten- 
sitat  auf  die  Farbe  nicht  anwendbar  ist."  Per- 
sonally, I  have  never  been  able  to  subscribe 
to  this  doctrine.     It  is  true,  as  Miiller  says,  that 


INTENSIVE  ATTRIBUTES:    VISION       21 

"die  Empfindung  einer  und  derselben  Grau- 
nuance  kommt  in  der  That  in  unserer  Erfah- 
rung  nicht  mit  merkbar  verschiedenen  Intensi- 
taten  vor,"  and  that  "auch  eine  Farbenempfin- 
dung  von  ganz  bestimmter  Qualitat  konnen 
wir  .  .  .  nicht  in  verschiedenen  Intensitaten 
herstellen."  That  is  matter  of  observable  fact. 
But  it  is  surely  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  we 
recognise  degrees  of  intensity  in  visual  sensa- 
tion, and  that  —  by  the  process  of  analogical 
abstraction  of  which  I  spoke  earlier  in  this 
Lecture  —  we  are  able  in  some  measure  to  ig- 
nore the  concomitant  change  of  quality  and  to 
direct  our  attention  to  intensity  alone.  Mliller, 
in  the  paper  just  quoted  from,  has  rescued  the 
intensity  of  visual  sensation,  on  the  psycho- 
physical side,  by  his  theory  of  central  gray ;  and 
Kulpe  has  now  accepted,  if  not  that  theory  itself, 
at  any  rate  the  attribute  whose  behaviour  it  is 
meant  to  explain.  The  theory,  in  brief  sum- 
mary, is  this :  that  w^e  owe  the  intensive  pecul- 
iarity of  visual  sensation  to  the  dual  character, 
peripheral  and  central,  of  the  nervous  processes 
involved.  The  retinal  processes  are  antagonistic  : 
two  coincident  stimuli  —  black  and  white,  for 
instance  —  are  effective  for  excitation  only  by 
their  difference,  by  excess  of  the  one  over  the 
other.     The   endogenous,    central   excitation    is 


22       SENSATION   AXD   ITS   ATTRIBUTES 

constant.  Hence  a  peripheral  stimulation  may 
result  in  the  whitening,  lightening,  or  in  the 
blackening,  darkening  of  the  central  gray,  but 
there  is  no  way  of  intensifying  that  gray  without 
changing  its  quality,  —  no  way  of  strengthening 
its  black  and  white  components  at  the  same  time 
and  in  the  same  degree/^ 

I  have  digressed  thus  briefly  into  psycho- 
physics,  because  it  is  precisely  in  such  cases  that 
that  much-abused  science  shows  to  its  best 
advantage.  Introspection  is  at  fault.  Some 
psychologists  will  have  it  that  the  scale  of  tints, 
the  black-white  series,  is  a  scale  of  intensities, 
and  will  hear  nothing  of  quality;  others  affirm 
that  it  is  a  scale  of  qualities,  and  will  hear  noth- 
ing of  intensity ;  others,  again,  declare  that  it  is 
at  once  qualitative  and  intensive.  Psycho- 
physics  not  only  resolves  the  difficulty,  but  shows 
why  the  difficulty  was  there. 

Here  we  may  leave  intensity,  and  pass  to  the 
consideration  of  the  spatial  and  temporal  attri- 
butes, extension  and  duration.  This,  as  you 
know,  is  controversial  ground.  I  cannot  help 
thinking,  however,  that  the  psychology  of  these 
attributes  is  simpler  than  it  is  ordinarily  repre- 
sented to  be.  We  must,  of  course,  distinguish : 
we  must  not  identify  physical  with  mental  time, 
or  physical  with  mental  space;    we  must  not 


EXTENSION  AND   DURATION  23 

confuse  processes  that  in  some  way  mean  time, 
or  mean  space,  with  attributes  that  in  some  way 
are  time  and  are  space;  we  must  not  run  to- 
gether time-estimate  and  durational  experience, 
or  space-estimate  and  extensional  experience. 
Granted !  But  the  attributes  themselves  are 
surely  obvious  enough.  What  is  psychological 
extension  ?  It  is  the  aspect  of  sensation  that 
we  attend  to  when  we  are  called  upon  to  answer 
the  questions  (perhaps  with  reference  to  an  after- 
image, perhaps  with  reference  to  a  cutaneous 
sensation) :  How  large  is  it  ?  What  shape  has 
it  ?  Is  it  regular  or  irregular  ?  large  or  small  ? 
continuous  or  patchy  ?  uniform  or  broken  ? 
And  in  the  same  w^ay,  psychological  duration 
is  the  attribute  that  we  attend  to  w^hen  we 
answer  the  questions :  How  long  does  it  last  ? 
When  does  it  disappear  ?  Has  it  gone  out  yet  ? 
Is  it  steady  or  interrupted.^  —  That  is  all.  The 
attributes  of  sensation  are  always  simultaneously 
present,  — evidently  !  since  the  nullifying  of  any 
attxibute  annihilates  the  sensation.  But  when 
we  are  thus  attending  to  extension  or  duration 
we  may  have  very  hazy  ideas  indeed  about  in- 
tensity and  quality;  precisely  as,  when  we  are 
observing  intensity,  we  may  have  very  hazy 
ideas  about  quality  and  duration.  The  ques- 
tion what  extension  and  duration  are,  in  direct 


24       SENSATION   AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

experience,  is  a  nonsensical  question ;  we 
can  only  reply,  tautologically,  that  duration  is  a 
going-on,  and  extension  a  spreading-out.  But 
what,  then,  are  quality  and  intensity  'in  direct 
experience '  ?  Does  it  help  to  say  that  quality 
is  the  individualising  attribute  ?  That  is  only 
saying  that  quality  is  quality.  Does  it  help  to 
say  that  intensity  is  always  a  more  or  a  less  ? 
What,  then,  of  clearness,  or  duration,  or  exten- 
sion ?  Or  that  high  intensities  make  a  greater 
claim  upon  us,  dominate  consciousness  more 
exclusively,  than  low  ?  What,  then,  of  clearness 
or  of  the  Eindringlichkeit  that  we  are  to  discuss 
presently  ?  You  cannot  define  the  indefinable : 
at  most  you  get  a  formal  equivalent  — '  simplest 
spatial  determination '  or  the  like  —  that  serves 
you  as  a  paragraph  heading.  As  to  the  difficulty 
that  duration  and  extension  must  find  expression 
in  physical  units,  and  that  we  have  no  right  to 
equate  the  psychical  and  the  physical,  that  is  a 
difficulty  which  occurs  also  in  the  case  of  inten- 
sity, where  it  has  been  successfully  met.  To 
work  over  the  whole  ground  again,  with  simple 
change  of  terms,  is  purely  gratuitous  labour.^^ 

It  is  more  to  the  point  to  inquire  into  the  em- 
pirical distribution  of  the  two  attributes.  Dura- 
tion appears  to  attach  to  all  sensations.  Exten- 
sion attaches,  without  any  doubt,  to  all  visual 


EXTENSION  AND  DURATION 


25 


sensations.  It  is  also  ascribed,  in  common 
parlance,  to  the  '  sense  of  touch.'  Touch,  how- 
ever, is  an  extremely  ambiguous  term;  it  may 
refer  to  cutaneous  pressure,  while  it  may  cover 
all  the  cutaneous  and  many  of  the  organic 
senses.  If,  now,  you  ask  me  which  of  these 
component  senses 
has  the  extensional 
attribute,  I  must  con- 
fess that  decision  is, 
in  some  instances, 
very  difficult,  and 
that  my  own  opin- 
ion has  differed  at 
different  times.  Just 
now,  I  am  inclined  to      -n^     ^  ^  u        f  ^r     i  a 

'  Fig.  2.  Schema  of  a  Visual  Sensation. 

be  liberal.        I  should  'The  four  vertical   lines   represent   the 

-  four    intensive    attributes :     intensity, 

give    the    attribute    to  clearness,     extension,     duration.      The 

allfoUroftheCUtane-     |f''    horizontal    Unes    represent    the 

three  qualitative  attributes  :  hue,  tint, 

ous    senses,  —  pres-   chroma. 

sure,  warmth,  cold,  and  pain ;  I  should  give  it 
to  the  organic  pains;  and  I  should  give  it  also 
to  the  organic  sensations,  kinsesthetic  or  other, 
whose  quality  suggests  the  term  *  pressure.'  It 
seems  to  me  that  in  all  these  sensations  we  get 
a  true  extension,  different  from  the  quasi-exten- 
sity  of  tones.  Let  me  repeat,  however,  that  de- 
cision is  difficult ;  I  have  no  wish  to  be  dogmatic. ^^ 


26       SENSATION  AND   ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

Clearness,  our  fourth  intensive  attribute,  is 
no  more  definable  than  its  fellows.  It  is  the 
attribute  which  distinguishes  the  *  focal'  from 
the  'marginal'  sensation;  it  is  the  attribute 
whose  variation  reflects  the  'distribution  of 
attention.'  ^^  We  may  postpone  its  discussion 
until  we  come  to  deal  with  the  subject  of 
Attention. 

I  must  also  touch,  however  briefly,  upon  the 
appearance  of  attributes  of  a  higher  order.  The 
best  illustration  of  what  is  meant  by  the  phrase 
is  afforded,  perhaps,  by  tone-colour  or  tone- 
tint,  —  a  certain  colouring  or  timbre  which  at- 
taches to  simple  tones,  and  which  may,  but 
need  not,  be  analysed.  We  owe  the  recognition 
of  this  compound  attribute  to  Stumpf,  w^ho  de- 
rives it  from  pitch,  intensity  (high  tones  are  in- 
trinsically louder  than  low),  and  volume.  It 
finds  expression  in  such  antitheses  as  bright  and 
dull,  sharp  and  flat,  full  and  hollow.  Other 
instances  are  the  penetratingness  of  certain 
scents, — camphor  and  naphthaline,  e.g.,  as 
compared  with  vanilla  and  orris-root,  —  the 
urgency  or  importunity  of  certain  pains  or  of 
the  taste  of  bitter,  the  obtrusiveness  or  self- 
insistence  of  certain  lights  and  colours  and  tones. 
All  these  latter  attributes  involve  clearness,  in 


THE  CRITERION  OF  SENSATION         27 

conjunction  with  quality,  or  with  intensity,  or 
with  intensity  and  quality  together.  Their 
investigation  in  detail  cannot  but  prove  fruitful, 
whether  for  psychology  or  for  psychophysics/^ 

I  spoke,  earlier  in  this  Lecture,  of  the  forty 
thousand  lights  and  colours  that  we  can  see, 
and  the  eleven  thousand  tones  that  we  can  hear. 
The  'forty  thousand'  was  a  rough  guess  at  the 
number  of  discriminable  qualities  included  in  the 
colour  pyramid ;  a  modest  guess,  too,  when  you 
compare  it  with  Ebbinghaus'  **many  hundred 
thousand,"  or  Aubert's  "many  million"!  But 
I  prefer  underestimation  to  overestimation ;  and 
I  think  that  Ebbinghaus  would  find  it  difficult 
to  bring  convincing  evidence  even  of  a  single 
hundred  thousand  visual  qualities.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  eleven  thousand  tones  are  dis- 
tinguished on  the  basis  of  pitch  alone ;  and  that 
number  must  be  increased  if  investigation  proves 
—  what  is  a  ^priori  extremely  probable  —  that 
pitch  may  remain  the  same  while  the  qualita- 
tive attribute  of  volume  undergoes  noticeable 
change.^  ^ 

Let  us,  however,  raise  in  conclusion  a  more 
general  question.  Why  do  we  identify  the  num- 
ber of  sensations  furnished  by  a  particular 
sense-department    with    the    number    of    distin- 


28       SENSATION  AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

guishable  sensory  qualities?  Why  is  quality 
the  'individualising'  attribute?  Why  are  not 
the  different  intensities  of  a  given  pitch  '  different 
sensations '  ? 

I  suppose  that,  in  strict  logic,  any  noticeable 
change  in  an  attribute  of  sensation  gives  us  a 
'different'  sensation.  As  soon  as  ever  intro- 
spection turned  to  the  attribute  of  intensity, 
it  found  differences,  not  of  simple  more  and  less, 
but  of  'kind.'  Lotze,  for  instance,  declares 
that  a  strong  sour  does  not  taste  the  same  as 
a  weak;  there  are  "qualitative  Veranderungen 
des  Empfindungsinhalts,  die  von  jenen  [inten- 
siven]  Differenzen  des  Reizes  abhangen."  Now, 
to  call  intensive  change  a  change  of  'quality' 
is  to  introduce  unnecessary  confusion  of  terms. 
We  need  not  do  that;  but  we  need  not  either, 
it  seems  to  me,  quarrel  with  those  who  hold 
that  sensations  of  the  same  quality  but  of  differ- 
ent intensity  are,  psychologically  regarded,  dif- 
ferent sensations.  The  innovation  would  not 
lengthen  our  list  of  visual  sensations ;  it  would, 
very  considerably,  lengthen  the  list  of  auditory 
sensations. 

And  what  of  clearness,  duration,  extension  ? 
Are  we,  in  their  case,  dealing  again  with  differ- 
ences of  'kind,'  or  merely  with  differences  of 
degree  ?     It  is  really  impossible  to  say ;  the  intro- 


THE  CRITERION  OF  SENSATION  29 

spective  judgments  are  lacking.  From  general 
impression,  I  incline  to  the  view  that  differ- 
ences of  clearness  are,  like  intensive  differences, 
ultimate  and  distinctive.  On  the  score  of  dura- 
tion and  extension  I  do  not  like  even  to  hazard 
a  conjecture;  though,  if  I  were  compelled  to 
take  sides,  I  should  fall  back  on  the  analogy  of 
intensity. 

If,  therefore,  there  is  anything  to  be  gained 
by  substituting  '  attributive  difference '  for  '  quali- 
tative difference'  as  a  criterion  of  sensation,  I 
shall  be  willing  to  make  the  change.  As  things 
are,  I  do  not  see  the  gain;  and  I  do  not  see, 
either,  the  necessity  of  logical  strictness.  Our 
classification  of  sensations  is  a  matter  of  utility, 
of  expediency;  the  question  involved  is  general, 
but  it  is  not  scientifically  important.  In  science, 
as  in  ordinary  life,  we  call  things  different  when 
their  difference  is  striking  and  outweighs  their 
likeness,  and  we  call  things  like  when  their  like- 
ness is  striking  and  outweighs  their  difference. 
Red  and  blue,  sour  and  sweet,  are  in  this  sense 
*  different';  loud  and  soft,  light  and  heavy,  are 
*like.'  Until  it  is  shown  that  the  new  and  more 
elaborate  classification  brings  positive  advan- 
tage to  descriptive  psychology,  I  shall  accord- 
ingly rest  content  with  the  traditional  list  of 
sensible  qualities. ^^ 


30       SENSATION   AND  ITS  ATTRIBUTES 

So  this  hasty  review  comes  to  an  end.  I  do 
not  apologise  for  its  imperfection,  its  sketchi- 
ness;  for  sensation  is  not  our  primary  subject, 
and  at  the  best  one  cannot  say  very  much  about 
sensation  in  a  single  hour.  I  have  tried  only  to 
raise  such  points  and  to  discuss  such  issues  as 
will  put  you  in  tune  with  me,  so  to  say,  for  our 
later  study  of  affection  and  attention.  When  I 
speak  of  sensation,  in  the  following  Lectures, 
I  shall  mean  by  it  the  kind  of  process  that  we 
have  been  considering  to-day ;  the  fringe  of  asso- 
ciation with  which  the  word  is  surrounded  will 
be  drawn  from  the  circle  of  ideas  within  which 
we  have  now  been  moving. 


i 


II 

SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION:  THE  CRITERIA  OF 
AFFECTION 


LECTURE  II 

SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION:  THE  CRITERIA 
OF   AFFECTION 

THE  psychology  of  feeling,  as  I  said  in  the 
introduction  to  the  preceding  Lecture,  is  in 
a  notoriously  unsettled  state.  We  have  psycholo- 
gists of  the  first  rank  who  posit  an  elementary 
affective  process  alongside  of  sensation ;  we  have 
psychologists  of  the  first  rank  who  deny  the  dis- 
tinction. Wundt  and  Lipps  stand  over  against 
Brentano  and  Stumpf  .^  I  propose,  now%  in  the 
present  hour,  to  examine  the  principal  arguments 
that  have  been  urged  in  favour  of  an  inde- 
pendent feeling  element,  and  the  arguments 
that  have  been  brought  forward  in  reply.  I 
shall  use  the  term  'afi^ection'  for  the  elementary 
process  in  question,  and  for  the  sake  of  clear- 
ness I  shall  speak  only  of  the  qualities  of  pleas- 
antness and  unpleasantness.  These,  of  course, 
are  recognised  by  all  psychologists  alike,  —  by 
those  who  hold  a  plural  as  well  as  by  those  who 
hold  a  dual  theory  of  affective  processes  at  large. 
What  we  may  call  the  gross  reason,  the  obvious 
reason,  for  assuming  an  affective  element  is, 
i>  33 


34  SEXSATIOX  AND  AFFECTION 

I  suppose,  the  gross  and  obvious  difference  be- 
tween the  intellectual  processes  of  the  adult 
mind,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  emotive  processes, 
on  the  other.  As  thought  differs  from  emotion, 
so  must  the  element  of  thought,  the  sensation, 
differ  from  the  element  of  emotion,  the  affection. 
Personally,  I  attach  more  weight  to  this  argument 
than  its  formal  expression  might  seem  to  warrant. 
I  believe  that  the  simple  feelings  —  our  expe- 
riences when  we  'feel  hungry,'  'feel  dizzy,'  *feel 
tired,'  'feel  comfortable,'  'feel  poorly,'  'feel  first- 
rate  '  —  represent  a  stage  or  level  from  which 
we  ascend  to  the  emotions ;  and  that  the  emo- 
tions, again,  represent  a  stage  or  level  from  which 
we  descend  to  secondary  feelings :  our  anger 
weakens  and  simplifies  to  a  feeling  of  irritation, 
our  resentment  to  a  feeling  of  chagrin  or  annoy- 
ance, our  joy  to  a  feeling  of  pleased  content- 
ment, our  grief  to  a  feeling  of  depression.  I 
believe  that  we  are  here  in  presence  of  a  general 
law^  or  uniformity  of  mental  occurrence;  that  all 
conscious  formations  show  like  phenomena  of 
rise  and  fall,  increase  and  decrease  in  complexity, 
expansion  and  reduction.  Nevertheless,  as  sys- 
tematic psychology  stands  to-day,  the  argument 
has  no  objective  validity,  no  power  to  carry  con- 
viction. It  may  be  traversed,  flatly  and  finally, 
in    two    different    ways:     by   the    James-Lange 


FEELING  AND  EMOTION  35 

theory  of  emotion,  and  by  the  theory  of  Stumpf. 
If  we  accept  a  strict  version  of  the  James-Lange 
theory,  and  identify  the  specifically  emotive 
or  affective  processes  in  emotion  with  organic 
sensations,  then  evidently  we  dispense,  at  this 
middle  level,  with  the  independent  affective 
element,  and  the  argument  from  continuity 
falls  to  the  ground.  And  if  we  divorce  the  sense- 
feeling  from  the  emotion,  in  Stumpf's  way,  and 
assert  that  the  'psychological  nucleus'  of  the 
emotion,  the  central  and  characteristic  process 
that  makes  it  what  it  is,  is  altogether  different 
from  sense-feeling, — that  "die  Sinnesgeflihle 
den  Gemiitsbewegungen  heterogen  sind," — then, 
again,  we  have  a  sharp  severance  of  continuity, 
and  the  argument  lapses.  Neither  of  these 
alternative  views  can  be  lightly  brushed  aside : 
the  James-Lange  theory  has  aroused  prolonged 
discussion,  and  has  gained  many  adherents; 
and  the  Stumpf  theory,  in  essential  points,  com- 
mands the  assent,  e.g.,  of  Stout  and  Irons.^ 

It  would  be  interesting  to  take  representative 
statements  of  the  three  views  of  emotion  —  say, 
the  statements  of  Wundt,  James,  and  Stumpf 
—  and  to  estimate  each  one  in  the  light  of  the 
other  two.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the  com- 
parison would  be  profitable.  Surely,  if  we  are 
to  reach  anything  like  a  conclusion,  we  must 


36  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

begin  lower  down ;  we  must  go,  not  to  emotion, 
but  to  sense-feeling.  Is  there  any  one  who,  when 
weighing  James'  theory  in  the  balance,  has  not 
heartily  wished  that  he  had  given  us  a  chapter 
on  the  feelings  ?  Is  there  any  student  of  the 
Tonpsychologie  and  of  Stumpf's  later  w^ork  who 
has  not  felt  the  want  of  that  'Abschnitt  tiber 
die  durch  Sinneseindrlicke  erweckten  Gefiihle' 
which  was  promised  in  1883  and  has  delayed 
until  1906  ?  ^  Can  any  one  doubt  that  the  issue 
raised  by  Wundt's  tridimensional  theory  of 
affections  is,  systematically,  a  more  fundamen- 
tal issue  than  is  involved  in  the  most  radical 
doctrine  of  emotion  ?  I  may  be  seeing  things 
crookedly ;  but  as  I  see  them,  the  heart  of  the 
problem  lies  in  feeling.  Let  us,  then,  attack  the 
problem  at  this  point;  let  us  consider,  as  criti- 
cally as  we  may,  the  alleged  criteria  of  affection. 

(1)  We  may  take  up,  first,  the  statement  that 
sensations  are  the  objective  and  affections  the 
subjective  elements  of  consciousness;  and  we 
will  try  to  give  these  terms,  'objective'  and 
*  subjective,'  a  tangible  psychological  meaning. 

Let  us  be  clear  that  the  meaning  must  be 
psychological ;  the  difference,  if  it  exist,  must  be 
a  difference  that  is  open  to  introspective  verifica- 
tion.    Anything  in  the  way  of  epistemological 


AFFECTION  AS   SUBJECTIVE  37 

argument  is  wholly  out  of  place.  It  is  out  of 
place  for  two  reasons.  On  the  one  hand,  psy- 
chology is  an  independent  discipline,  and  can 
no  more  take  dictation  from  epistemology  than 
it  can  from  metaphysics  or  ethics.  And,  on 
the  other,  epistemology  is  concerned  with  the 
principles  of  knowledge  —  whether  with  the 
material  and  formal  principles  together,  or  with 
the  material  principles  alone,  is  matter  of  defini- 
tion ;  while  the  psychological  element  has  no 
part  or  lot  in  knowledge,  has  no  reference  or 
meaning  or  object  or  cognitive  contents  of  any 
sort. 

Let  us  be  clear,  also,  that  the  meaning  which 
we  give  to  the  terms  '  objective '  and  '  subjective ' 
must  cover  a  difference  in  the  elementary  pro- 
cesses regarded  as  elementary.  It  has  been 
urged,  for  instance,  that  the  sensory  elements 
in  perception  are  looked  upon,  in  ordinary 
thought,  as  properties  of  external  things,  whereas 
feeling  is  always  personal,  reflects  always  a  state 
of  the  mind  itself.  Heat  seems  to  reside  in  the 
burning  coals;  but  the  pleasantness,  the  grate- 
fulness, of  the  warmth  is  in  me.  I  will  not  now 
dwell  on  the  epistemological  implications  of  this 
argument,  but  will  accept  it  at  its  face  value, 
as  an  argument  from  the  psychology  of  percep- 
tion and  feeling.     And  I  reply,  first,  that  the 


38  SENSATION  AND   AFFECTION 

statement  which  it  makes  is  not  true,  the  dis- 
tinction which  it  draws  cannot  be  drawn.  For 
the  pleasant  or  grateful  feeling  which  is  subjec- 
tive, in  me,  is  a  feeling  and  not  an  affection ; 
it  comprises  certain  organic  sensations;  and 
nobody  confuses  organic  sensations  with  prop- 
erties of  external  things.  I  reply,  secondly, 
that  the  argument,  even  if  it  were  true,  would  be 
irrelevant.  For  it  is  an  argument  based,  not  on 
introspection  of  the  elementary  processes  as 
such,  but  on  the  character  or  behaviour  of  these 
processes  in  combination.  We,  however,  are 
dealing  with  the  mental  elements  in  their  status 
as  elements. 

There  are,  I  think,  three  interpretations  of  the 
terms  'objective'  and  'subjective'  that  have 
claims  upon  our  attention,  (a)  The  first  is 
that  of  Wundt.  In  a  recent  study  of  Wundt's 
doctrine  of  psychical  analysis,  Hollands  has  made 
the  subjectivity  of  affective  process,  in  Wundt's 
system,  the  topic  of  detailed  study.  I  need  not 
here  attempt  any  summary  of  the  discussion, 
since  Hollands'  articles  are  easily  accessible 
in  The  American  Journal  of  Psychology.  The 
upshot  of  the  investigation  is  that  Wundt  con- 
trasts, under  the  two  rubrics,  tendency  to  fusion 
and  persistent  discreteness.  "Feeling  ...  is 
always  falling  into  unitary  masses,  it  forms  a 


AFFECTION  AS  SUBJECTIVE      39 

single  continuum.     This  ...  we  may  take  as 
Wundt's  final  meaning  in  psychology  for  sub- 

What  are  we  to  say  in  criticism  ?  This,  evi- 
dently :  that  while  Wundt  has,  as  Hollands  main- 
tains, given  the  distinction  an  "introspective 
definition,"  he  has  not  derived  it  from  a  com- 
parison of  isolated  sensation  with  isolated  affec- 
tion. A  'tendency  to  fusion'  is  not  an  attribute 
that  shows,  like  intensity  or  quality,  in  the  single 
element.  Besides,  there  is  also  a  tendency  to 
fusion  in  the  organic  sensations;  they,  too,  are 
*  always  falling  into  unitary  masses.'  Indeed, 
if  we  reject  Wundt's  theory  of  the  plurality  of 
affective  qualities,  the  criterion  becomes  meaning- 
less :  the  '  unitary  masses '  and  the  '  single  con- 
tinuum' formed  with  pleasantness-unpleasant- 
ness by  excitement-depression  and  strain-relaxa- 
tion take  us  out  of  the  affective  sphere  and  into 
that  of  organic  sensation ;  the  subjectivity  that 
should  characterise  affection  now  characterises 
a  group  of  sensations.  Finally,  it  must  be 
remarked  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Totalgefilhl 
is  not  universally  accepted.  "Es  giebt,"  says 
Saxinger,  "einen  grossen  Kreis  von  Thatsachen, 
welcher  Zeugniss  flir  das  Vorkommen  coexis- 
tirender  Geflihle  ablegt."  Here  is  no  fusion, 
no  continuum,  but  separation  and  discontinuity. 


40  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

Let  us  try  another  interpretation.  We  might 
argue  (b)  that  sensations  are  objective  because 
they  are  experienced  in  the  same  way  by  every 
one,  and  that  affections  are  subjective  because 
they  are  experienced  differently,  individually, 
by  different  persons  or  by  the  same  person  at 
different  times.  Here,  again,  however,  it  would  \ 
be  enough  to  point  out  in  answer  that  the  single 
elements  carry  no  such  distinction  upon  them. 
Stumpf  has  also  brought  up  a  factual  objection : 
he  reminds  us  that  what  is  supposed  to  hold  of 
the  affective  processes  holds  very  definitely  of 
sensations  of  temperature.  A  room  that  seems 
overwarm  when  you  come  in  from  the  outside 
air  may  seem  chilly  to  those  who  have  been  sit- 
ting in  it  for  some  time.  Stumpf  might  have 
generalised  this  objection,  and  referred  simply 
to  the  phenomenon  of  adaptation.  Wherever 
we  have  adaptation,  there  we  have  the  possibility 
that  like  stimuli  will  arouse  different  sensations 
in  different  minds.  And  if  you  rejoin  that  the 
sensations  are,  nevertheless,  always  the  same 
under  the  same  conditions,  then  I  ask :  How  do 
you  know  that  this  rule  does  not  also  apply  to 
affections  ?  The  variability  of  affective  expe- 
rience may  be  due,  precisely,  to  difference  in 
affective  adaptation. 

There  is  still  the  third  possibility.     We  might 


AFFECTION  AS  SUBJECTIVE      41 

express,  in  the  terms  'objective'  and  'subjec- 
tive,' the  fact  (c)  that  sensations  can  stand  alone 
in  consciousness,  independently  oi  affection, 
while  affection  never  appears  alone,  but  always 
and  of  necessity  as  the  concomitant  of  some  sen- 
sation. Many  psychologists,  as  we  know,  have 
looked  upon  affection  not  as  an  elementary  pro- 
cess, coordinate  with  sensation,  but  as  an  attri- 
bute of  sensation;  they  speak  of  Gefilhlston, 
affective  tone,  feeling  tone,  algedonic  quality. 
The  hypothesis  that  underlies  these  phrases  I 
shall  discuss  in  the  next  Lecture  ;  I  am  here  con- 
cerned simply  with  the  alleged  fact  that  sensa- 
tions occur  in  isolation,  affections  only  in  con- 
nection with  sensations.  If  the  difference  exists, 
it  is  an  admissible  ground  of  distinction ;  for 
although  it  is  not  a  difference  of  attribute,  it  is 
nevertheless  a  difference  that  shows  in  the  com- 
parison of  element  with  element :  the  attempt  to 
isolate  an  affection  will  result,  always,  in  the  iso- 
lation of  paired  sensation  and  affection. 

But  does  the  difference  exist  ?  Listen  to 
Ktilpe.  "We  find  sensations  present,"  he  says, 
'* where  feeling  is  absent;  that  is,  we  have 
sensations  which  are  neither  agreeable  nor  dis- 
agreeable ;  and  we  further  find  (such  at  least 
is  the  author's  experience)  feelings  present  w^liere 
sensation  is  absent ;    that  is,  we  have  feelings 


42  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

which  are  not  accompanied  by  or  attached  to 
definite  sensations,  or  which  arise  where  the  ner- 
vous conditions  of  sensation  are  debarred  from 
the  exercise  of  their  ordinary  influence  on  con- 
sciousness." I  do  not  think  that  many  of  the 
psychologists  who  recognise  the  independence  of 
the  affective  element  would  subscribe,  without 
qualification,  to  this  opinion.  But  it  is  by  no 
means  uncommon  —  e.g.  in  experimental  work 
upon  the  association  of  ideas  —  to  find  cases  re- 
corded in  which  a  feeling  precedes  or  lags  behind 
or  outlasts  its  idea.  And  if  Kiilpe  is  too  extreme, 
Ladd  can  probably  claim  a  widespread  accept- 
ance of  his  view  that  "in  the  flow  of  the  one 
stream  of  conscious  life  the  feelings  may  assume 
either  one  of  the  three  possible  time-relations  * 
towards  the  sensations  and  ideas  by  which  we 
classify  them ;  they  may  fuse  with  them  in  the 
'now'  of  the  same  conscious  state,  or  they  may  | 
lead  or  follow  them."  Our  final  possibility  is 
thus  suflBciently  disposed  of.^ 

We  have  considered  three  meanings  of  the 
term  'subjective.'  We  have  taken  it  to  imply 
a  tendency  towards  fusion ;  individual  variability 
of  experience;  and  what  we  may  call  a  second 
remove  or  a  higher  power  of  conscious  existence. 
In  every  instance  argument  has  been  met  by 
counter-argument,    authority    for    by    authority 


AFFECTION  AS  NON-LOCAL  43 

against.  We  must,  I  think,  conclude  that,  if 
there  really  is  a  difference  between  sensation 
and  affection,  the  words  'objective'  and  'subjec- 
tive' are  ill  chosen  to  express  it.* 

(2)  The  distinction  that  we  have  next  to  con- 
sider is  the  distinction  of  local  and  not-local. 
Sensations,  it  is  said,  may  be  localised;  affec- 
tions are  not  localisable.  The  distinction  is 
ambiguous,  since  the  'locality'  may  be  a  position 
in  perceptual  space  or  a  place  in  consciousness. 
We  will  take  the  question  of  'outer'  localisation 
first. 

Are  all  sensations  localisable  at  some  point  of 
space  .'^  "Allen  Sinnesempfindungen,"  says  von 
Frey,  "ist  die  Beifiigung  eines  Lokal-  oder 
Merkzeichens  eigentiimlich."  And  he  adds, 
"fiir  den  Unbefangenen  wird  gerade  das  Lokal- 
zeichen  ein  Beweis  sein,  dass  der  Schmerz  ein 
den  ubrigen  Sinnesempfindungen  gleichwertiges 
Element  des  Bewusstseins  darstellt."  That  is 
definite  enough.  As  usual,  however,  there  are 
statements  on  the  opposite  side.  "Eine  Lokal- 
isation  der  Geruchsempfindungen  als  soldier," 

*  In  my  own  mind,  the  difTerence  of  subjective  and  objective 
appears  always  as  a  difference  of  texture:  affection  is  softer, 
flimsier,  more  yielding  than  sensation,  —  however  organic  the 
sensation  may  be.  This  textural  difference  is  what  I  'feel*  when 
I  read,  e.g.,  that  "feeling  as  such  is  matter  of  being  rather  than  of 
direct  knowledge." 


44  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

writes  Nagel,  "gibt  es  genau  genommen  nicht. 
Ich  fiir  meine  Person  wenigstens  vermag  meine 
sehwachen  Geruchsempfindungen  gar  nicht  zu 
lokalisieren."  When  odours  are  localised,  they 
are  localised  because  their  stimuli  affect  more 
than  one  set  of  end-organs:  *'bei  dem  Geruchs- 
sinn  ist  das  lokalisierende  Vermogen  gleich  Null." 
Definite  again  !  Angell  and  Fite  tell  us,  simi- 
larly, that  "genuinely  pure  tones  are  essentially 
unlocalisable  in  monaural  hearing";  *'it  seems 
quite  safe  to  say  that  in  monaural  hearing  really 
pure  tones  are  unlocalisable."  And  even  with 
binaural  hearing,  it  is  not  difficult  so  to  arrange 
the  conditions  of  observation  that  localisation  is 
impossible.  If  you  work  with  sounds  of  very 
low  intensity,  or  if  you  work  with  tuning-fork 
tones  in  the  open,  your  observer  surrounded  with 
a  curtain,  you  will  find  cases  in  which  there  is 
sheer  inability  to  localise.  *' There  are  sounds," 
says  Pierce,  "that  prior  to  all  accessory  expe- 
rience are  sharply  and  definitely  located.  .  .  . 
But  over  against  these  sharply  located  sounds  are 
others  that  can  be  assigned  no  position  what- 
ever." Finally,  Orth  insists  that  there  are  or- 
ganic complexes,  vague  resultants  of  diffuse,  weak 
stimulation,  which  cannot  be  localised.  Not 
all  sensations,  then,  are  capable  of  localisation. 
But,  on  the  other  side,  is  affection  unlocalis- 


AFFECTION  AS  NON-LOCAL  45 

able  ?  Stumpf  reports  that  the  agreeableness 
and  disagreeableness  which  accompany  sensa- 
tions of  the  higher  senses  seem  to  him  to  have  a 
certain  spatial  moment ;  they  are  not  localised, 
it  is  true,  in  the  colours  and  tones  themselves, 
but  are  felt  "als  im  Kopf  ausgebreitet."  "  Auch 
diese  etwas  unbestimmte  Lokalisation  ist  aber 
Lokalisation."  I  have  known  observers  to  in- 
sist, similarly,  that  the  pleasantness  of  the  taste 
of  chocolate  cream  is  localised  in  the  mouth,  the 
pleasantness  of  tones  and  chords  in  the  head  or 
chest.  Lagerborg  bears  witness  to  the  same 
effect:  "an  einem  Katermorgen  nehmen  wir 
Unlust  im  Kopf,  im  Rachen,  im  Magen  wahr." 
And  Storring  distinguishes  a  Stimmungslust, 
"an  der  .  .  .  die  gesammten  jeweilig  vorhan- 
denen  Bewusstseinsinhalte  teilhaben,"  from  a 
localised  Emj)fi7idu7igslust,  "die  an  die  .  .  . 
[betreftenden]  Empfindungen  allein  gebunden 
erscheint." 

There  remains  the  question  of  *  inner'  locali- 
sation. Sensations,  it  is  said,  run  their  course 
side  by  side  in  consciousness ;  affection  is  always 
coextensive  with  consciousness.  The  argument 
hinges,  therefore,  on  the  possibility  of  what  are 
called  'mixed  feelings.'  Can  pleasantness  and 
unpleasantness  exist  simultaneously  in  conscious- 
ness ? 


46  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

If  we  appeal  to  the  text -books,  we  find  the 
expected  divergence  of  opinion.  "It  is  hardly 
possible  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge 
to  decide  positively  for  or  against  the  reality  of 
these  mixed  feelings.  ...  In  our  own  view, 
mixed  feelings  are  certainly  less  well  authenti- 
cated than  cancellation  of  feeling."  This  is 
Kiilpe's  statement  in  the  Outlines.  "Just  as 
we  may  sense  cold  in  the  feet  and  warmth  in  the 
hands  at  the  same  time,  so  may  we  experience 
the  pleasantness  of  a  savoury  dish  along  with 
the  unpleasantness  of  a  severe  headache.  .  .  . 
The  affective  accompaniment  of  complex  mental 
formations  may  be  extremely  complicated." 
This  is  Ebbinghaus'  statement  in  the  Grimdzilge, 
"All  the  affective  elements  present  in  conscious- 
ness at  a  given  moment  connect  to  form  an  uni- 
tary affective  resultant":  that  is  Wundt.  "A 
full  sense  of  conflict  between  pleasure  and  pain 
arises  when  the  two  feelings  are  both  present  in 
a  distinct  and  strong  form,  and  are  not  so  unequal 
in  point  of  strength  as  to  allow  of  one  over- 
powering the  other":  that  is  Sully.  And  so  we 
might  continue. 

So  far  as  I  know,  the  coexistence  of  pleasant- 
ness and  unpleasantness  has  only  in  three  cases 
been  inade  the  subject  of  experimental  inquiry. 
In   two,   the   result   has   been    negative.     Ortli, 


MIXED   FEELINGS  47 

in  1903,  gave  seven  tests  to  four  observers  with 
a  view  to  the  analysis  of  the  emotion  of  doubt. 
He  records  unpleasantness  ten  times  and  pleas- 
antness five  times  (in  nine  and  four  of  the  twenty- 
eight  tests,  respectively)  ;  there  is  no  instance 
of  simultaneity,  but  one  very  striking  instance  of 
succession,  in  which  the  order  is  pleasantness, 
unpleasantess,  pleasantness  again,  and  terminal 
unpleasantness.  Alechsieff,  in  1907,  attacked 
the  problem  directly.  He  made  twenty-nine 
experiments  with  pairs  of  stimuli  (tastes  and 
odours,  tones  and  colours)  so  chosen  that  the 
one,  taken  alone,  would  be  pleasant  and  the 
other  unpleasant.  "Aus  diesen  Versuchen  kam- 
en  wir  zu  dem  Schlusse,  dass  Lust  und  Unlust 
nicht  gleichzeitig  in  unserem  Bewusstsein  ex- 
istieren  konnen,  sie  konnen  nicht  nebeneinander, 
sondern  immer  nur  nacheinander  von  uns  erlebt 
werden."  I  may  add  that  in  1906  experiments 
of  the  same  type  were  begun  by  Hayes  in  the 
Cornell  laboratory,  and  —  so  far  as  they  went 
—  yielded  a  like  result ;  they  were,  however,  too 
few  in  number  to  warrant  separate  publication. 
It  is,  perhaps,  unfortunate  that  Orth  was  a 
pupil  of  Kiilpe's,  Alechsieff  a  pupil  of  Wundt's, 
and  Hayes  a  pupil  of  my  own;  for  all  three 
of  us  may  be  suspected  of  j)arti  pris,  and  all 
three  of  the  experimenters  may  therefore  have 


48  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

been  influenced  —  despite  our  efforts  at  im- 
partiality —  by  what  is  called  '  laboratory  atmos- 
phere.' It  is  still  more  unfortunate,  I  think, 
that  the  experiments  themselves  are  so  scanty. 
All  the  more  welcome,  then,  is  Johnston's  paper 
of  1906.  The  investigation  covers  a  period  of 
two  years ;  the  observers  are  twelve  graduate 
students  in  Harvard  University  or  Radcliffe 
College;  the  paired  stimuli  include  colours, 
tactual  surfaces,  tuning-fork  tones,  noises,  forms 
filled  with  different  colours,  and  odours,  as  well 
as  more  complicated  material ;  and  the  outcome 
is  definitely  positive.  We  are  informed,  e.g., 
that,  after  training,  eleven  of  the  twelve  observers 
"were  all  convinced  that  both  feeling-tones,  for 
tactual  and  visual  impressions,  could  be  present 
at  once." 

I  should  be  very  sorry,  now,  to  criticise  for  the 
sake  of  criticising.  On  the  contrary,  I  would 
give  a  good  deal,  as  the  saying  is,  to  have  this 
question  of  mixed  feelings  settled  in  the  one 
way  or  the  other ;  it  is  a  question  that  has  been 
with  me,  more  or  less  insistently,  for  the  past 
dozen  years ;  and  I  should  have  attacked  it 
experimentally  long  ago,  had  I  found  an  ade- 
quate method.  Theories,  believe  me  !  sit  more 
lightly  on  their  owners  than  is  commonly  sup- 
posed ;   I    would    cheerfully    exchange    all    my 


MIXED  FEELINGS  49 

*  views'  of  feeling  for  a  handful  of  solid  facts. 
And  if  Johnston  had  proved  his  conclusion,  I 
should  accept  it.  So  far,  however,  is  he  from 
proof  that  it  is  even  difficult  to  say,  in  precise 
terms,  what  his  conclusion  is  meant  to  be. 

Consider !  There  were  twelve  graduate  ob- 
servers, seven  of  whom  "had  had  from  one  to 
five  or  more  years'  training  in  laboratory  in- 
vestigations." Here  is  no  levy  of  tiros,  but  a 
band  of  veterans.  Had  they  never  heard  of 
feeling,  never  run  across  theories  of  feeling, 
never  thought  out  for  themselves  what  feeling 
might  mean,  never  discussed  the  various  defini- 
tions of  feeling  ?  Moreover,  several  members  of 
the  group  were  available  for  the  whole  period  of 
two  years.  Did  they  not  work  out  a  definition 
of  their  own,  adopt  some  particular  criterion  or 
criteria  of  feeling  in  the  course  of  the  period  ? 
Not  a  word  is  said  upon  these  two  points ;  we 
do  not  know  what  the  observers  meant  by  feel- 
ing either  at  their  down-sitting  or  at  their  up- 
rising. At  the  most  we  can  guess  from  the  intro- 
spective reports.  And  the  very  first  report 
cited  —  the  description  of  feeling  for  a  particular 
shade  of  red  —  reads  thus:  "It  feels  as  if  it 
would  be  soft."  No  doubt  it  does  !  But  in  what 
sense  is  '  soft '  a  feeling  ? 

The  instruction  given  to  the  observers  was  of 


50  SENSATION  AND   AFFECTION 

a  very  general  kind.  They  **were  requested  to 
give  themselves  up  to  the  situation  and  to  report 
as  accurately  as  they  could  the  kind  of  affective 
state  experienced."  In  preliminary  series,  with 
single  stimuli,  the  same  observers  had,  how- 
ever, been  given  a  far  more  complex  instruction. 
They  had  been  told,  in  effect,  to  describe  the 
feeling ;  to  report  always  all  concomitant  organic 
sensations;  and  to  distinguish  the  significant 
organic  concomitants  from  the  accidental.  This 
is  a  large  order !  The  rule  of  work  in  Aus- 
frageexperimeiite  is,  surely,  to  make  instruction 
narrow  and  definite,  for  any  given  series,  and 
thus  to  fractionate  the  introspections.  There 
is  no  other  way  to  secure  unequivocal  results. 
Wliile,  now,  the  instruction  in  the  experiments 
with  paired  stimuli  was  simpler  than  that  in  the 
experiments  with  single  stimuli,  there  can,  I 
think,  be  little  doubt  that  the  habit  of  observa- 
tion formed  in  the  first  series  was  carried  over 
to  the  second ;  only  thus  can  I  account  for  cer- 
tain of  the  introspections  recorded.  At  any 
rate,  the  complexity  of  the  original  instruction 
was  a  mistake ;  and  the  general  instruction  of 
the  second  series  should,  in  my  judgment,  have 
been  narrowed  by  specific  regulations  concerning, 
e.g.,  the  direction  and  distribution  of  attention. 
Or  if  it  seemed  advisable  to  take  series  with 


MIXED   FEELINGS  51 

general  instruction,  then  these  should  have  been 
paralleled  by  other  series  in  which  the  instruc- 
tion was  variously  narrowed.  It  is  odd  that 
Johnston  says  nothing,  gives  not  a  single  refer- 
ence, on  the  score  of  the  AusfragemetJwde. 

I  have  sometimes  been  charged  with  pre- 
ferring method  to  result.  I  do  not  know  that 
that  would  be  a  crime ;  I  do  not  know  why  the 
search  for  truth  should  not  be  the  sole  end  of  a 
man's  endeavours.  If  he  sinned,  he  would  sin 
in  good  company.  But  on  lower  ground  the 
point  is,  of  course,  that  your  result  is,  after  all, 
a  function  of  your  method;  method  is  the  road 
to  result ;  given  a  method,  —  and  in  fairly  com- 
petent hands  results  will  follow  of  themselves. 
Let  us  see,  then,  to  what  kind  of  result  the  method 
of  which  I  have  just  spoken  has  led. 

It  is  essential  that  the  results  of  this  form  of 
the  method  of  impression  be  stated  in  the  ob- 
servers' own  words.  Orth  gives  his  complete 
records.  Alechsieff  gives  complete  samples. 
Johnston  does  not.  While  he  writes  out  a 
temperamental  analysis  of  his  twelve  observ- 
ers, later  verified  by  themselves,  he  has  edited 
and  arranged  the  introspections,  and  only  occa- 
sionally mentions  an  initial  or  puts  a  phrase 
into  inverted  commas.  The  temperamental 
analysis  does  not  help    us ;    we  want  to  know 


52  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

who  said  what,  and  how  often,  and  in  what 
context.  Moreover,  Johnston's  own  account  is 
both  meagre  and  confused.  I  can  find  no  men- 
tion of  the  time  during  which  the  paired  stimuli 
were  exposed,  —  though  this  fact  is  of  cardinal 
importance  when  it  is  a  question  of  the  coexist- 
ence or  succession  of  affective  processes.  I 
find  no  mention  of  the  number  of  experiments 
made  with  each  observer,  or  of  their  arrange- 
ment, or  of  the  time-interval  between  them.  As 
for  the  outcome,  I  hope,  but  I  cannot  be  sure, 
that  the  following  summary  is  correct. 

Johnston  notes  (a)  phenomena  of  complete 
fusion.  This  appears  to  be  identical. with  what 
he  terms  "a  total  mood  with  similar  or  harmoni- 
ous constituents."  To  be  distinguished  from 
fusion  is  (6)  summation,  where,  e.g.,  two  un- 
pleasant elements  "exist  throughout,  each  in 
turn  intensifvinc:  the  whole  undertone  of  feelinc:, 
but  also  remaining  a  feeling-tone  of  a  particular 
kind."  In  (c)  partial  reenforcement,  *'both  feel- 
ing-tones contribute  to  a  feeling  of  the  same  kind, 
yet  do  retain  some  individual  characteristics 
which  stand  out  for  themselves."  I  do  not  see 
how  this  differs  from  (b) ;  at  most  there  is  a 
slight  difference  of  degree.  What  is  differen- 
tiated by  Johnston  as  (d)  partial  inhibition  seems 
to  be  only  a  name  given  by  certain  observers  to 


MIXED  FEELINGS  ^       53 

partial  reenforcement.  At  any  rate,  these  four 
are  all  cases  of  fusion  or  summation,  and  do  not 
directly  concern  us.  Next  comes  {e)  total  inhi- 
bition, which  does  interest  us  here.  *' Cases 
of  total  inhibition  .  .  .  are  by  far  the  most 
frequent,  as  would  naturally  be  expected [.^]. 
When  sandpaper  is  being  applied,  and  no  re- 
pose is  felt  in  the  body,  a  colour,  suddenly  pre- 
sented, for  a  moment  pleases  the  eye,  but  quickly 
loses  all  feeling-character,  and  can  only  be  *  in- 
tellectually perceived.'"  "In  cases  of  feelings  of 
opposite  nature  occurring  together,  the  stronger 
generally  prevails,  finally  in  most  cases  effacing 
all  specific  tone  for  the  weaker  element.  An 
odour,  for  example,  even  when  always  un- 
pleasant, becomes  less  so  when  one  looks  at  a 
pleasant  colour,  w^hen  a  feeling-tone  can,  or 
often  when  it  cannot,  be  detected  for  the  colour 
at  the  time."  I  understand  from  these  sentences 
that  when  two  opposite  feeling-tones  are  aroused 
by  two  stimuli,  operating  at  the  same  time,  the 
regular  or  usual  result  is  cancellation ;  what  we 
feel,  if  we  feel  at  all,  is  the  excess  of  the  one  over 
the  other.  But  Johnston  has  a  sixth  category, 
of  ij)  merely  simultaneous,  independent  coex- 
istence. *'When  a  very  unpleasant  form  .  .  . 
is  being  felt,  a  slightly  unpleasant  colour  tends 
to  arouse  often  in  this  situation,  as  if  by  con- 


54  SEXSATIOX   AXD  AFFECTIOX 

trast,  a  simultaneously  pleasant  element  in  the 
total  experience."  "When  there  is  a  clear  strife 
between  the  two  [feeling-tones],  they  both  can  exist 
as  equal  partial  tones  with  an  undertone  of  un- 
pleasantness in  the  failure  to  coordinate  them." 
Now  these  experiences  must,  in  the  light  of  what 
has  just  been  said,  be  rare.  Why,  then,  —  see- 
ing how  critical  the  observations  are,  —  were 
not  the  complete  introspections  given  ?  It  looks 
to  me  as  if,  in  both  of  the  instances  quoted,  we 
w^ere  in  presence  of  fairly  complex  emotive  pro- 
cesses ;  the  pleasure  that  arises  'by  contrast,'  and 
the  displeasure  that  comes  from  'failure  to 
coordinate,'  are  not  the  feeling-tones  of  the 
stimuli.  Are  they  feeling-tones  at  all  ?  Or  are 
they  organic  complexes,  the  organic  sensations 
characteristic  of  relief  and  of  disappointment  ? 
And  again :  if  they  are  feeling-tones,  were  they 
strictly  coexistent  ?  Is  it  possible  to  experience 
three  affective  processes  at  once  —  a  pleasant- 
ness, an  unpleasantness,  and  another  unpleas- 
antness —  and  to  hold  them  distinct  at  a  given 
moment  of  time  ?  Very  little  v.  eight,  I  am 
afraid,  can  be  attached  to  this  imperfect  report 
of  what  are,  admittedly,  exceptional  cases. — 

Let  us  now  glance  back  over  this  whole  dis- 
cussion. We  found  that  the  distinction  of  local 
and    not-local,    as    referred    to    sensations    and 


AFFECTION  AS  NON-LOCAL  55 

affections,  might  mean  two  different  things.  It 
might  mean,  first,  that  sensations  are,  and 
affections  are  not,  localisable  in  perceptual  space. 
We  found,  however,  statements  to  the  effect 
that  some  sensations  cannot  be  localised,  while 
we  found  also  alleged  instances  of  the  localisa- 
tion of  affection.  We  may  therefore  reject  this 
criterion,  without  going  into  the  further  question 
whether  locality,  some  form  of  Merkzeichen,  is 
an  attribute  that  shows  in  the  single  sensation. 
The  distinction  might  mean,  secondly,  that 
sensations  run  their  course  side  by  side  in  con- 
sciousness, while  affections  are  always  coex- 
tensive with  consciousness.  The  experimental 
evidence,  so  far  as  it  goes,  appears  to  bear  out 
this  contention.  Orth,  Alechsieff,  and  Hayes 
find  no  mixed  feelings ;  Johnston  finds  that 
mixed  feelings  are  the  exception  and  not  the 
rule ;  and  we  have  seen  that  the  exceptional  in- 
stances are  themselves  not  above  suspicion.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  experimental  evidence  is 
scanty  and  incomplete;  and  psychological  opin- 
ion at  large  is  sharply  divided.  Moreover,  it 
might  be  urged  that  there  are  occasions  when 
consciousness  reduces  to  a  single  sensation : 
pain,  or  a  deafening  noise,  or  a  blinding  glare. 
So  we  seem  to  be  as  uncertain  at  the  end  as  we 
were  at  the  beginning.^ 


56  SENSATION  AND   AFFECTION 

(3)  A  third  distinction,  which  we  owe  to 
Wundt,  is  that  of  difference  and  antagonism. 
Sensations  range  between  maximal  differences; 
feelings,  between  maximal  opposites.  "Allge- 
mein  werden  die  Empfindungsqualitaten  durch 
grosste  Unterschiede,  die  Gef iihlsqualitaten  durch 
grosste  Gegensatze  begrenzt." 

I  think  that  there  has  been  a  tendency,  in 
the  discussions  of  feeling,  towards  too  cavalier 
a  treatment  of  this  distinction.  It  is  really  not 
quite  easy  to  see  what  the  difference  means,  and 
not  quite  easy  to  bring  valid  argument  for  or 
against  it.  Before,  how^ever,  we  come  to  details, 
let  us  notice  that  Rehmke  refuses  to  connect 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  in  any  way 
whatever.  "Lust  und  Unlust  sind  'incommen- 
surable Grossen,'  wie  Ton  und  Farbe  es  sind." 
*'Die  Thatsachen  des  Seelenlebens  .  .  .  geben 
nicht  den  geringsten  Anlass  zu  der  Behauptung : 
'Lust  und  Unlust  sind  gegensatzliche  Zustande, 
welche  durch  einen  Lidifferenzpunkt  in  einander 
iibergehen.'"  "Lust  und  Unlust  als  that- 
sachlich  besondere  Bestimmtheiten  der  Seele 
haben  nichts  mit  einander  gemein."  This  view 
is,  no  doubt,  exceptional;  but  it  deserves  con- 
sideration in  the  present  context. 

The  objection  usually  brought  against  Wundt 's 
formula  is  that  there  are  sensations,  too,  which 


AFFECTIONS  AS  OPPOSTTES  57 

range  between  maximal  opposites.  This  is 
probably  what  Stumpf  has  in  mind  when  he 
says  that  the  statement  is  **so  offenbar  mit 
den  Tatsachen  in  Widerspruch,  dass  wir  nicht 
darauf  einzugehen  brauchen."  What,  then,  are 
the  'Tatsachen'?  Orth  refers  to  warmth  and 
cold:  "die  Empfindungen  des  Temperatur- 
sinnes  bewegen  sich  in  derselben  Gegensatz- 
lichkeit."  He  cites  also  the  organic  complexes 
of  hunger  and  satiety,  and  the  bodily  states  that 
we  term  'fresh'  and  'tired.'  Klilpe,  m  his  sec- 
tion on  sensations  of  temperature,  argues  in  the 
other  direction.  "A  simple  increase  or  diminu- 
tion of  temperature  can  change  either  sensation 
into  its  opposite,  the  path  of  change  lying  through 
a  point  of  indifference  or  zero-point.  There  is 
no  analogy  to  this  fact  in  the  sphere  of  sensation, 
though  there  is  a  very  complete  one  in  that  of 
feeling."  Ebbinghaus  passes  very  lightly  over 
the  'gegensatzliche  Gliederung'  of  the  affective 
processes:  "sie  stehen  hiermit  iibrigens  nicht 
allein,"  he  says,  and  quotes  the  three  cases  given 
by  Orth.  All  this  seems  to  me  rather  super- 
ficial. 

What  we  mean  by  maximal  differences  of  sen- 
sation is  clear  enough.  The  attributes  of  sen- 
sation are,  as  we  saw  in  the  last  Lecture,  either 
qualitative  or  intensive.     If  they  are  intensive, 


58  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

they  range  —  so  to  say,  vertically  —  between 
zero  and  infinity,  or  rather  between  a  lower  and 
an  upper  limiting  value.  If  they  are  qualitative, 
they  range  —  so  to  say,  horizontally  —  between 
extremes  that  are  equally  remote  from  both  of 
these  limiting  values.  How  can  there  be  an 
*  opposition '  of  sensory  qualities  ?  We  are  re- 
ferred to  the  sense  of  temperature :  but  there  is 
no  sense  of  temperature.  There  are  a  cold  sense 
and  a  warmth  sense,  —  different  senses.  The 
thermometric  scale  is  continuous ;  but  that  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  Years  ago  I  w^as 
troubled  by  this  antithetical  account  of  warmth 
and  cold,  and  made  a  series  of  experiments, 
from  warmth  to  cold  and  from  cold  to  warmth, 
in  order  to  trace  the  passage  of  the  one  to  the 
other  through  the  point  of  indifference.  I  never 
found  that  point.  Ktilpe,  who  entirely  believes 
in  its  existence,  confesses  that  he,  too,  has  been 
unable  to  verify  its  occurrence.  The  whole 
construction  is  artificial ;  and  the  appeal  to  tem- 
perature is  an  appeal  to  physics,  not  to  psy- 
chology. As  for  hunger  and  satiety,  —  try  them  ! 
Introspect  your  organic  sensations  in  moderate 
hunger  and  after  a  hearty  dinner.  So  far  from 
finding  opposition,  antagonism,  you  will  find  a 
very  general  resemblance.  Lastly,  the  sensa- 
tions of  freshness  and  tiredness,  in  so  far  as  they 


AFFECTIONS  AS  OPPOSITES      59 

are  muscular  in  the  strict  meaning  of  that  term, 
—  in  so  far,  that  is,  as  they  belong  to  a  single 
sense,  —  range  from  bright  to  dull,  from  light 
to  heavy,  from  lively  to  dead :  but  these  are 
qualitative  differences,  akin  to  the  differences  of 
black  and  white  in  vision  and  of  high  and  low 
in  audition;  there  is  no  opposition  or  antago- 
nism between  them. 

Now  look  at  the  other  side  of  the  shield.  Our 
ordinary  speech  is  very  apt  to  couple  words 
which,  in  a  loose  w\ay,  may  be  considered  as 
*opposites.'  We  speak  of  hard  and  soft,  rough 
and  smooth,  sharp  and  blunt,  wet  and  dry, 
strong  and  weak,  keen  and  dull,  light  and  heavy, 
warm  and  cold ;  we  speak  of  dark  and  fair, 
hungry  and  thirsty,*  wide-awake  and  drowsy, 
fresh  and  tired,  good-looking  and  ugly,  clever 
and  stupid,  good  and  bad.  The  list  might  go 
on  indefinitely.  It  is  perfectly  clear  that,  in 
most  instances,  there  is  no  real  opposition  be- 
tween the  paired  terms ;  they  stand  simply  for 
extremes  of  possible  difference,  whether  in  an 
attribute  of  sensation  or  in  formations  as  com- 
plex as  character  and  intelligence.  Why,  then, 
are  two  or  three  of  them  singled  out,  as  express- 

*  When  Alice  tried  to  'quench  her  thirst'  with  the  Red  Queen's 
biscuit,  —  "and  it  was  very  dry,"  —  the  antagonism  between 
hunger  and  thirst  was  at  least  as  real  as  the  alleged  antagonism 
of  hunger  and  satiety  ! 


60  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

ing  opposition  ?  Why,  indeed,  —  unless  be- 
cause an  affective  opposition  is  implied  ?  Pleas- 
ant warmth  and  unpleasant  cold;  pleasant 
satiety  and  unpleasant  hunger;  pleasant  fresh- 
ness and  unpleasant  tiredness :  is  not  that  the 
opposition  ?  I  think  that  wherever  the  opposi- 
tion is  conscious,  it  is  affective.  Notice,  too, 
that  it  is  never  absolute;  cold  may  be  pleasant 
in  summer,  unpleasant  in  winter.  Hunger  may 
be  pleasant,  a  'jolly'  hunger.  Tiredness  may 
be  a  *  comfortable '  tiredness.  We  thus  oppose 
degrees  of  cold,  degrees  of  hunger,  degrees  of 
tiredness,  as  well  as  cold  and  warmth,  etc.  On 
the  whole,  warmth  and  satiety  and  freshness  are 
pleasant,  and  cold  and  hunger  and  fatigue  are 
unpleasant ;  here  is  the  general  opposition  to 
which  our  authorities  appeal :  but  there  are 
special  oppositions  that,  if  sensory  at  all,  must 
be  intensive  and  not  qualitative.  Notice,  lastly, 
that  other  paired  terms  may  be  brought  into 
conscious  opposition  if  only  we  grant  them  an 
affective  colouring;  a  carving-knife  may  be 
beautifully  sharp  or  horribly  blunt,  a  bed  may 
be  comfortably  soft  or  dreadfully  hard.  And 
here  as  before  there  are  oppositions  of  degree; 
comfortably  soft  may  contrast  with  too  soft, 
dreadfully  hard  with  just  hard  enough. 

This   interpretation   of  the  facts   of  'sensory 


INTENSITY  OF  IDEAL  FEELINGS         61 

opposition'  squares  very  well  with  the  system- 
atic doctrine  that  all  *  psychological '  contrast  — • 
I  use  Lipps'  phrase  —  is  a  matter  of  feeling : 
that  the  ordinary  man  looks  small  by  the  side 
of  a  giant  because  you  are  disappointed,  and 
looks  large  by  the  side  of  a  dwarf  because  you 
are  surprised.  To  that  doctrine  I  subscribe. 
But  neither  it  nor  the  considerations  which  I 
have  just  been  urging  tell  us  what  affective 
opposition  is.  Is  it  mutual  incompatibility  in 
consciousness  ?  Those  who  —  like  Lipps,  in 
his  earlier  writings  —  deny  the  possibility  of 
mixed  feelings  might  agree  to  such  a  definition, 
and  we  have  seen  that  the  evidence  against 
mixed  feelings  is  fairly  strong.  Only,  we  saw 
also  that  it  is  not  conclusive.^ 

(4)  A  fourth  criterion  of  affection  is  suggested 
by  Kiilpe.  You  will  remember  that  Ktilpe  classi- 
fies sensations  as  peripherally  excited  and  cen- 
trally excited ;  the  distinction  corresponds  to 
that  between  sensation  and  image,  and  we  shall 
do  well,  perhaps,  to  employ  the  more  familiar 
terms.  He  classifies  feelings  in  the  same  way, 
as  peripherally  and  centrally  excited.  Since, 
however,  very  few  psychologists  agree  with  him 
that  affective  processes  can  stand  alone  in  con- 
sciousness,  w^e  shall  do  w^ell,   again,  to  phrase 


62  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

the  difference  as  that  between  the  affection  which 
accompanies  a  sensation  and  the  affection  which 
accompanies  an  image.  Now  the  greatest  dis- 
parity between  sensation  and  image,  Kiilpe  says, 
shows  on  the  side  of  intensity,  and  the  intensive 
difference  between  the  two  processes  is  "nor- 
mally recognised  in  every  case  by  introspection." 
On  the  other  hand,  the  affection  which  accom- 
panies the  image  is  '* usually  as  vivid" — that 
means  here,  as  intensive  —  as  that  which  goes 
with  the  sensation.  "Only  the  very  highest 
degrees  of  sense-pleasure  and  sense-pain  are 
now  able  to  overpower  the  centrally  excited, 
'higher'  feelings."  Here,  then,  is  our  criterion. 
Image  is  weaker  than  sensation,  but  the  image- 
affection  is  intensively  equivalent  to  the  sense- 
affection. 

I  wish  to  avoid  all  reference  to  the  systematic 
question  of  affective  reproduction,  and  I  shall 
therefore  let  the  phrase  'centrally  excited  affec- 
tion' pass  without  comment.  We  know  what 
Kiilpe  means.  But  shall  w^e  accept  the  state- 
ment of  fact  upon  which  his  criterion  rests  ? 
Ladd  very  definitely  does  not.  "In  general," 
he  writes,  "ideal  pleasures  and  pains,  when 
measured  by  a  strict  standard  of  quantity,  are 
much  inferior  to  those  occasioned  by  strong 
sensations."     And   more  strongly  still:     "Ideal 


INTENSITY  OF   IDEAL   FEELINGS  63 

pains  and  pleasures  are  not  comparable  in  mere 
intensity  with  sensuous  pains  and  pleasures." 
Contradiction  could  hardly  be  flatter.  And  con- 
tradiction is  what  we  shall  have,  here  and  else- 
where in  the  psychology  of  feeling,  until  we  can 
work  out  an  experimental  control  of  introspec- 
tion. As  Wundt  said  long  ago,  *'Selbstbeo- 
bachtung  ist  ausfiihrbar,  sie  ist  es  aber  nur  unter 
der  Bedingung  der  experimentellen  Beobach- 
tung." 

We  cannot,  however,  leave  the  matter  at  this 
point,  since  Stumpf  has  taken  Klilpe's  sugges- 
tion seriously,  and  has  brought  two  arguments 
against  it.  First,  of  course,  he  rules  out  the 
appeal  to  emotion ;  he  denies  the  continuity  of 
sense-feeling  and  emotion.  Then  he  says  :  sup- 
pose that  Klilpe's  statement  were  literally  and 
universally  true;  still,  the  difference  that  he 
signalises  would  not  be  very  important.  '*Denn 
wir  finden  unter  den  verschiedenen  Sinnen  doch 
auch  bei  allem  Gemeinsamen  genug  charakter- 
istische  Verschiedenheiten  :  der  eine  zeigt  Simul- 
tankontrast,  der  andere  nicht,  der  eine  zeigt 
messbare  Ausdehnungsunterschiede,  der  andere 
nicht,  u.s.w."  He  points  out,  also,  that  if  you 
regard  sensation  and  image  as  the  same  in  kind 
and  different  only  in  degree,  then  Klilpe's  dis- 
tinction loses  its  theoretical  significance. 


64  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

The  second  objection  offers  an  alternative  to 
Klilpe's  view.  May  it  not  be,  Stumpf  asks,  that 
the  image-affection  is  normally  weaker  than  the 
sense-affection,  —  just  as  the  image  is  normally 
weaker  than  the  sensation,  —  but  that  the 
image-affection  is  very  easily  transformed  into 
a  sense-affection  ?  In  other  words,  may  we  not 
be  liable  '*in  ganz  gewohnlichen  Fallen"  to 
affective  hallucinations,  just  as  '*unter  beson- 
deren  Umstanden"  we  are  liable  to  hallucinatory 
images  ?  No  doubt,  cause  must  be  shown ;  but 
cause  can  be  shown,  Stumpf  thinks,  in  terms  of 
his  own  theory  of  Gefuhlseinpfiiidungen,  —  the 
theory  w^liich  we  are  to  discuss  in  the  next 
Lecture. 

I  do  not  know  how^  to  meet  the  first  objection. 
If  the  attributes  available  for  definition  are 
merely  quality,  intensity,  extent,  and  duration, 
and  if  extent  is  not  an  universal  attribute  of 
sensation,  then  we  might,  certainly,  classify  the 
mental  elements  at  large  as  spatial  and  non- 
spatial.  The  classification  would,  indeed,  be 
superior  to  Klilpe's  distinction  of  sensation  and 
affection,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  based  upon  a 
difference  observable  in  the  single  element, 
whereas  Klilpe's  intensive  criterion  requires  the 
presence,  along  with  affection,  of  sensation  or 
image.     We   should  grow   accustomed,   after  a 


AFFECTIVE  HABITUATION  65 

while,  to  placing  sight  and  touch  in  a  class  by 
themselves,  and  bracketing  pleasantness-un- 
pleasantness with  tones  and  odours  and  the 
rest.  At  the  same  time,  I  hardly  suppose  that 
Stumpf  meant  his  argument  to  be  worked  out 
in  detail ;  the  gist  of  it  is,  simply,  that  Kiilpe's 
difference  is  unimportant.  And  to  that  we  can 
only  reply  that  Kiilpe  thinks  it  important,  and 
that  Ladd  denies  its  existence. 

The  second  objection  stands  or  falls  with 
Stumpf 's  personal  views  :  its  consideration  must, 
therefore,  be  postponed. "^ 

(5)  It  has  been  said  that  the  fact  of  habitu- 
ation, the  loss  or  change  of  quality  with  lapse 
of  time,  marks  off  affection  from  sensation. 
The  habitual  sensation  is  indifferent,  has  ceased 
to  affect  us,  w^hile  its  sense-quality  remains 
unchanged. 

The  obvious  reply  is  that  affective  adaptation 
has  its  direct  analogue  in  sensory  adaptation. 
As  we  become  adapted  to  colours,  tastes,  odours, 
pressures,  so  do  we  become  habituated  to  pleas- 
antness and  unpleasantness.  This  is  Stumpf 's 
position.  Ebbinghaus,  on  the  contrary,  finds 
only  *'eine  verhaltnismassig  schwache  Analogic" 
between  the  two  sets  of  phenomena.  We  must 
therefore  inquire  further. 


66  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

The  statements  in  the  text-books  are  conflict- 
ing. Kiilpe  says  that  habituation  means  in- 
difference. '*  There  is  no  evidence  that  unpleas- 
antness passes  into  pleasantness.  Observations 
that  seem  to  point  towards  any  such  process  are 
referable  to  other  causes.  At  least,  the  reverse 
passage,  of  pleasantness  into  unpleasantness,  will 
be  found  to  be  of  hardly  less  frequent  occur- 
rence ;  and  no  one  would  attempt  to  explain 
it  by  habituation."  Ebbinghaus  declares  that 
"diese  blosse  Abschwachung  der  Gefuhlswerte 
erst  eine  Seite  der  Sache  ist,"  and  seeks  to  show 
how,  in  terms  of  adaptation,  pleasantness  may 
pass  through  indifference  to  unpleasantness  and 
unpleasantness  through  indifference  to  pleasant- 
ness, —  the  very  occurrences  that  Kiilpe  ex- 
cludes. Both  authors,  I  suppose,  have  Leh- 
mann  in  mind ;  but  they  put  a  different  estimate 
upon  Lehmann's  conclusions. 

Lehmann  distinguishes  between  affective  ha- 
bituation to  continuous  and  to  intermittent 
stimuli.  Where  the  stimulus  is  continuous, 
affective  blunting  is  "ein  rein  scheinbares  Phii- 
nomen,"  pure  illusion.  You  begin,  we  will  say, 
with  a  pleasantness.  As  time  goes  on,  the  sense- 
organ  becomes  adapted;  you  have  an  "Ab- 
stumpfung  der  Empfindung"  which  naturally 
means    also    an    "Abstumpfung   des    Gefiihls." 


AFFECTIVE  HABITUATION  67 

If  the  stimulus  persists,  unpleasurable. sensations 
from  foreign  stimuli  make  incursion  into  con- 
sciousness, and  the  indifference  becomes  un- 
pleasantness. The  two  factors,  of  sensory  adap- 
tation and  foreign  interference,  may  operate 
singly  or  in  various  combinations.  Or  you 
begin  with  an  unpleasantness.  This  continues, 
with  increasing  intensity,  until  the  onset  of 
sensory  adaptation  in  the  form  of  nervous  ex- 
haustion. If  indifference  occurs,  it  occurs  only 
when  and  because  the  sensory  side  of  your  ex- 
perience drops  out  of  consciousness;  as  soon  as 
the  sensation  reappears,  the  unpleasantness  re- 
appears with  it.  You  may,  then,  reach  a  stage 
of  indifference,  of  forgetfulness,  but  the  original 
unpleasantness  never  changes  to  the  opposite 
quality. 

Now  turn  to  intermittent  stimuli.  You  have, 
according  to  Lehmann,  precisely  the  same  phe- 
nomena as  before :  either  the  sensory  side  of 
the  experience  becomes  obscure,  through  diver- 
sion of  attention,  or  unpleasurable  sensations 
from  foreign  sources  invade  consciousness,  or 
both  factors  cooperate  to  change  the  original 
affective  quality.  But  he  goes  on  to  point  out 
that  the  intermittently  repeated  stimulus  does 
not  wholly  lose  its  affective  significance ;  there  is 
a  law  of  the  *  indispensableness  of  the  habitual.' 


68  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

General  sensory  adaptation,  the  "Gewohnung 
des  Organismus,"  leaves  a  need,  a  '*Bedurfnis." 
As  the  satisfaction  of  a  need  is  pleasurable,  you 
may  have,  in  terms  of  this  law,  a  shift  of  affective 
quality  from  unpleasant  to  pleasant ;  only,  the 
shift  is  indirect,  from  unpleasantness  of  stimulus 
to  indifference,  from  that  to  the  unpleasantness 
of  need,  and  from  that  again  to  the  pleasantness 
of  satisfaction.  The  converse  change,  from 
pleasant  to  unpleasant,  is  not  mentioned  by 
Lehmann. 

Kulpe,  then,  repeats  Lehmann  exactly.  There 
is  no  evidence  of  the  change,  under  habituation, 
from  unpleasantness  to  pleasantness ;  Lehmann 
shows  that  the  passage  is  indirect.  No  one 
would  think  of  ascribing  to  habituation  the 
change  from  pleasantness  to  unpleasantness ; 
Lehmann  says  nothing  of  such  change.  Eb- 
binghaus,  on  the  contrary,  reinterprets  Lehmann. 
He  accepts  the  law  of  custom,  of  the  indis- 
pensableness  of  the  habitual,  but  makes  the 
unpleasant  stimulus  pass  directly,  through  in- 
difference, to  pleasantness.  And  he  parallels 
this  law  by  a  law  of  tedium  or  ennui,  which  is 
realised  when  an  originally  pleasant  stimulus 
passes  directly,  through  indifference,  to  un- 
pleasantness. 

In   my  own  opinion,  affective  habituation  is 


AFFECTION  AND  CLEARNESS  69 

a  phenomenon  of  the  same  order  as  sensory 
adaptation,  and  results  always  and  only  m  in- 
difference. Even  if  Ebbinghaus  is  correct,  and 
quality  passes  into  opposite  quality,  we  have  a 
sensory  analogy  in  the  case  of  vision :  adapta- 
tion to  yellow  means  blue-sightedness,  local 
adaptation  to  green  means  a  purple  after-image. 
However,  our  present  concern  is  with  the  dif- 
ference between  sensation  and  affection;  and 
we  have  gone  far  enough  with  the  phenomena  of 
habituation  to  see  that,  in  the  present  state  of 
psychology,  appeal  to  them  is  hopeless.^ 

(6)  I  have  postponed  to  the  last  the  discussion 
of  a  criterion  which,  to  my  mind,  is  the  most 
obvious  and  the  most  important  of  all.  It  is 
this :  that  affections  lack,  what  all  sensations 
possess,  the  attribute  of  clearness.  Attention 
to  a  sensation  means  always  that  the  sensation 
becomes  clear;  attention  to  an  affection  is  im- 
possible. If  it  is  attempted,  the  pleasantness 
or  unpleasantness  at  once  eludes  us  and  dis- 
appears, and  we  find  ourselves  attending  to 
some  obtrusive  sensation  or  idea  that  we  had 
not  the  slightest  desire  to  observe. 

Kulpe  emphasises  this  difference  between 
the  elementary  processes,  and  at  the  same  time 
forestalls  a  misunderstanding.     "  A  weakly  pleas- 


70  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

urable  feeling,"  he  writes,  "is  intensified  by  the 
direction  of  the  attention  upon  its  concomitant 
sensations,  and  an  impression  which  stands  on 
the  border  line  between  pleasantness  and  un- 
pleasantness may  be  made  unpleasant  by  an  in- 
tense concentration  of  the  attention  upon  it. 
In  a  certain  sense,  then,  attention  is  a  favourable 
condition  for  the  feelings  as  it  is  for  sensation." 
That  is  the  removal  of  the  possible  misunder- 
standing. "But,"  Kiilpe  goes  on,  "curiously 
enough,  the  result  is  quite  different  if  attention 
is  turned  upon  the  feeling  itself.  It  is  a  familiar 
fact  that  contemplatioii  of  the  feelincrs,  the  devo- 
tion of  special  attention  to  them,  lessens  their 
intensity  and  prevent sthei^jiatural  expression . 
This  diminution  of  intensity  .  .  .  [is  shown  by] 
a  tendency  of  the  affective  contents  to  disappear 
altogether,  to  make  way  for  the  state  of  indiffer- 
ence. .  .  .  Attention,  then,  is  adverse  to  the 
feelings,  when  concentrated  directly  upon  them." 
He  then  quotes  the  introspective  report  which 
accompanied  certain  experiments  made  by  the 
method  of  expression.  "The  subject  often  in- 
sisted that  the  feeling  had  altogether  disappeared 
under  attention,  and  that  it  was  very  difficult, 
in  any  case,  to  attend  to  pleasantness  or  unpleas- 
antness. Feeling  has  too  little  objectivity  and 
substantiality  for  the   attention  to  be   directed 


AFFECTION  AND  CLEARNESS  71 

and  held  upon  it.  It  is  focussed  for  a  moment, 
and  then  other  processes,  especially  organic 
sensations,  interpose  and  take  possession  of 
the  conscious  fixation-point."  And  later  on, 
when  describing  the  effects  of  attention,  he  says : 
"While  pleasure  and  pain  {Lust  und  Leid)  are 
brought  far  more  vividly  to  consciousness  by 
the  concentration  of  attention  upon  their  con- 
comitant sensations,  they  disappear  entirely 
when  we  succeed  (and  we  can  succeed  only 
for  a  moment)  in  making  the  feeling  as  such  the 
object  of  attentive  observation." 

I  myself,  in  1894,  published  a  brief  account 
of  experiments  which  had  led  to  a  like  result. 
Further  evidence  is  furnished  by  Zoneff  and 
Meumann.  These  investigators  made  experi- 
ments in  which  the  observers  were  instructed 
to  attend  now  to  the  stimulus,  now  to  the  feeling 
aroused  by  the  stimulus.  The  instruction  proved 
to  be  ambiguous.  In  certain  cases,  "man  con- 
cent rirt  sich,  d.  h.  man  behalt  das  Gefiihl  will- 
kiirlich  eine  relativ  langere  Zeit  im  Blickpunkte 
des  Bewusstseins  und  analysirt  dasselbe.  Es 
wird  etwa  dartiber  nachgedacht,  ob  das  Gefiihl 
mehr  oder  weniger  angenehm  bezw.  unangenehm 
ist.  Hier  findet  eine  wirkliche  Analyse  des  Ge- 
fiihls  statt,  die  von  einer  gewissen  korperlichen 
Spannung  begleitet  ist."     In  other  cases,  "der 


72  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

Reagent  suelit  sicli  das  Geflihl  moglielist  zum 
Bewusstsein  zu  bringen,  ohne  aber  dasselhe  zu 
analy siren,  oder  mit  anderen  Worten,  das  Gefiihl 
tritt  in  den  Blickpunkt  des  Bewusstseins,  dabei 
hleiht  es  aber,  es  geschieht  mit  ihm  nichts  weiter. 
Das  Gefiihl  wird  so  zu  sagen  mit  Hingebung 
gefiihlt."  As  for  the  result:  "eine  blosse  Rich- 
tung  der  Aufmerksamkeit  auf  das  Gefiihl  [the 
second  case]  verstarkt  dasselbe,  wird  dagegen 
das  Gefiihl  zum  Gegenstand  einer  psycholo- 
gischen  Analyse  gemacht  und  in  diesem  Sinne 
Geojenstand  der  Aufmerksamkeit,  so  wird  es  be- 
deutend  geswacht,  ja  sogar  ganz  aufgehoben." 

The  general  sense  of  these  passages  is  clear. 
The  unpractised  observers,  when  instructed  to 
'attend'  to  the  feeling,  thought  that  they  were 
to  do  the  best  they  could  for  it,  to  assume  the 
mental  attitude  most  favourable  to  it;  to  resign 
themselves  passively  to  the  feeling,  to  let  it  have 
its  way  with  them.  Under  these  conditions,  the 
feeling  naturally  attained  its  fullest  intensity. 
The  more  practised  observers  —  this  distinction 
is  drawn  by  the  authors,  not  by  me  —  sought  to 
abstract  from  the  sensible  concomitants,  and  to 
attend  strictly  to  the  affective  contents  as  such. 
Under  these  conditions,  the  feeling  was  notably 
weakened,  if  not  entirely  destroyed. 

I  say  that  the  general  sense  of  the  passages  is 


AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION  73 

clear.  The  wording,  however,  is  obscure  and 
can  be  justified,  if  at  all,  only  by  the  considera- 
tion that  Zoneff  and  Meumann  are  purposely 
taking  a  non-committal  position  as  regards  sys- 
tematic questions.  Thus,  the  unpractised  ob- 
servers certainly  did  not  'direct  their  attention 
to  the  feeling'  in  the  same  sense  that  one  directs 
one's  attention  to  a  sensation.  So  far  from  at- 
tending, reaching  out  to  the  feeling,  they  sat  back 
and  let  the  feeling  come.  The  very  fact  that 
they  did  this  —  that  they  instinctively  refrained 
from  attention  to  the  feeling  itself,  in  order  to 
give  it  first  place  in  consciousness  —  shows  how 
unnatural,  not  to  say  impossible,  the  literal  in- 
struction was.  Again,  the  practised  observers 
are  said  to  'analyse  the  feeling.'  But  how 
could  they  'analyse'  what  a  few  pages  back  has 
been  called  an  'elementary'  feeling.?  What 
they  did  was  to  ideate  the  feeling,  to  reflect 
upon  it,  to  ask  themselves  questions  about  it :  all 
this,  in  the  vain  effort  to  hold  it  as  a  sensation  is 
held.  Once  more :  what  is  meant  by  the  pres- 
ence of  a  feeling  "im  Blickpunkte  des  Bewusst- 
seins".?  The  associations  that  come  with  the 
phrase  are  drawn  from  the  sphere  of  sensory 
attention,  so  that  here  Zoneff  and  Meumann 
seem  to  have  departed  from  their  non-committal 
attitude.     You   cannot,   after  all,   free  yourself 


74  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

from  * Voreingenommenheit '  by  a  fiat  of  will; 
you  have  approached  the  problem  by  way  of 
certain  concepts,  and  though  you  deny  them 
your  speech  will  betray  you. 

In  his  recently  published  Experimentelle  Pdda- 
gogik,  Meumann  writes  as  follows:  *'[Es]  muss 
noch  von  emotionaler  und  voluntionaler  [ !]  Auf- 
merksamkeit  gesprochen  werden,  denn  unsre 
Aufmerksamkeit  kann  sich  ebensogut  auf  Will- 
enshandlungen  und  Gefiihle  richten  und  es  ist 
ein  blosses  theoretisches  Vorurteil,  wenn  das 
von  manchen  Psychologen  geleugnet  wird.  Sie 
konnen  sich  jederzeit  selbst  davon  uberzeugen, 
dass  wir  unsre  Gefiihle  einer  analysierenden 
Beobachtung  zu  unterziehen  vermogen,  wie 
jeden  anderen  Bewusstseinszustand,  dann  richtet 
sich  die  analysierende  Aufmerksamkeit  auf  das 
Gefuhl."  I  must  confess  that  this  passage  stag- 
gers me.  Anybody  at  any  time  may  convince 
himself  that  he  can  attend  to  his  feelings  ?  And 
yet,  four  years  earlier,  Meumann  had  attached  a 
"quite  especial  importance"  to  his  and  Zoneif's 
experimental  work  on  that  point,  and  had  stressed 
the  fact  that  *'*die  Richtung  der  Aufmerksam- 
keit' auf  ein  psychisches  Erlebniss  ein  sehr 
vieldeutiger  Ausdruck  ist,  mit  dem  ganz  hetero- 
gene  Vorgange  bezeichnet  werden."  But,  you 
will  say,  he  speaks  now  of  'analytical  observa- 


AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION  75 

tion,'  *  analytical  attention.'  So  he  does,  — 
without  defining  the  adjective.  And  then  this 
analytical  attention  to  the  feelings  is  of  the  same 
order  as  analytical  attention  to  *'any  other  state 
of  consciousness."  Four  years  earlier  we  were 
told  that  the  feelings  were  "bedeutend  ge- 
schwacht,  ja  sogar  ganz  aufgehoben"!  — 

I  began  this  discussion  with  a  reference  to 
Klilpe.  I  did  so,  because  I  know  of  no  experi- 
ments earlier  than  his.  The  doctrine  which  I 
am  defending  —  "der  Schlendrian  der  alten 
Aufmerksamkeitstheorie "  which,  according  to 
Meumann,  is  a  mere  theoretical  prepossession 
—  is,  of  course,  very  much  older.  It  is  aptly 
phrased,  e.g.,  by  Hamilton.  "Reflection,"  he 
says,  "is  properly  attention  directed  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  mind."  "We  are,  indeed,  able  to 
constitute  our  states  of  pain  and  pleasure  into 
objects  of  reflection,  but  in  so  far  as  they  are 
objects  of  reflection,  they  are  not  feelings,  but 
only  reflex  cognitions  of  feelings."  It  is  fully 
worked  out  by  Ward.  It  is  implicit  in  Wundt's 
theory  of  feeling  as  the  "Reaction  der  Appercep- 
tion auf  das  einzelne  Bewusstseinserlebniss," 
the  "  Reactionsweise  der  Apperception  auf  den 
Bewusstseinsinhalt."  Ktilpe's  acceptance  of  the 
Wundtian  theory  is  grounded  upon  the  impli- 
cation;    and  Wundt's  own  language  is  exceed- 


76  SENSATION   AND  AFFECTION 

ingly  careful.  Hollands  writes  :  "  Concerning  the 
method  of  feeling-analysis,  we  find  the  statement 
that  feeling  .  .  .  cannot  be  isolated  as  an  object 
of  attention.  .  .  .  This  is  the  invariable  teach- 
ing of  Wundt."  Even  when  Wundt  slips,  he 
furnishes  his  own  corrective.  While,  e.g.,  he 
speaks  incautiously,  in  one  passage,  of  the  *  ap- 
perception' of  the  affective  tone  of  an  obscurely 
perceived  sensation,  he  explains  in  another  that 
well-marked  feelings  may  accompany  a  *  Vorstel- 
lungsinhalt'  which  "wegen  der  vorwaltenden 
Richtung  der  Auf merksamkeit "  is  not  apper- 
ceived;  and  the  two  accounts  refer  to  the  same 
experience. 

I  need  not  multiply  quotations.  No  doubt, 
there  are  dissentient  voices.  Saxinger,  for  in- 
stance, cites  Lehmann  to  the  effect  that  we  are 
able,  by  voluntary  direction  of  attention,  to 
bring  a  feeling  to  the  forefront  of  consciousness. 
True,  this  is  a  misquotation :  Lehmann  speaks, 
in  fact,  of  the  direction  of  attention  upon  a 
"betonte  Vorstellung,"  not  upon  a  feeling;  but 
Saxinger's  words  show  that  he,  at  any  rate,  has 
no  difficulty  in  conceiving  of  attention  to  a  feel- 
ing. Indeed,  he  speaks,  a  little  later  on,  of  the 
' Beleuchtung '  of  feelings  by  the  attention.  And 
the  authors  who  identify  affection  with  sensation 
must,  of  necessity,  take  Saxinger's  view,  —  un- 


THE  CRITERIA  OF  AFFECTION  77 

less  they  avoid  the  present  issue  altogether. 
On  the  whole,  however,  I  think  that  this  sixth 
criterion  stands  its  ground  more  firmly  than  any 
of  the  others  that  we  have  considered.^ 

What,  now,  is  to  be  our  general  conclusion  ? 
This,  I  think :  that  two  of  the  proposed  criteria 
of  affection  must  probably  be  given  up;  that 
two  others  are  extremely  instable ;  and  that  two 
deserve  very  serious  consideration.  The  two 
that  we  must  apparently  discard  are  those  fur- 
nished by  habituation  and  by  central  intensity. 
The  two  that  we  pronounce  doubtful  are  those 
of  subjectivity  and  of  non-localisableness.  The 
two  that,  at  any  rate,  give  us  pause  are  those  of 
qualitative  antagonism  and  lack  of  clearness. 

This  statement  is  as  near  as  I  can  get  to  an 
impartial  verdict.  The  whole  discussion  illus- 
trates the  difficulty  of  discriminating  between 
elementary  processes  in  any  other  way  than  by 
appeal  to  experience  itself.  And  I  would  ask 
you  to  remember  that  that  appeal  still  remains. 
All  of  the  distinctions  between  sensation  and 
affection  profess  to  be  drawn  from  experience ; 
the  wording  may  be  clumsy,  or  suggestive,  or 
individually  coloured;  but  the  difference  itself 
is  either  there  or  not  there,  in  your  own  intro- 
spection. 


78  SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION 

I  would  ask  you,  also,  to  remember  one  other 
thing.  A  psychologist  who  definitely  accepts 
any  single  criterion,  and  so  makes  affection  an 
independent  mental  element,  may  very  well 
revise  our  conclusion,  and  ascribe  value  to  cri- 
teria that  we  have  disputed  or  rejected.  We  have 
proceeded  serially,  taking  each  distinction  by 
itself.  That  was  necessary,  in  the  interests  of 
clearness;  but  I  do  not  know  that  it  was  quite 
fair.  If,  for  instance,  we  were  to  consider  sub- 
jectivity and  coextension  with  consciousness  along 
with  antagonism  and  lack  of  clearness,  making 
the  four  characters  interdependent,  as,  to  a  large 
extent,  they  really  are,  we  could,  I  believe,  con- 
siderably strengthen  the  case  for  an  elementary 
affection.  I  can  do  no  more  than  mention  the 
point  here ;  I  shall  recur  to  it,  briefly,  in  my  con- 
cluding Lecture/^ 


Ill 

THE  AFFECTIONS  AS  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 


LECTURE  III 

THE  AFFECTIONS   AS   GEFUHLSEMP- 
FIN  DUN  GEN 

MANY  attempts  have  been  made,  and  for 
various  reasons,  to  identify  affection  with 
sensation,  and  thus  to  reduce  all  the  mental  ele- 
ments to  a  single  kind.  We  must  rule  out  of  con- 
sideration here,  as  we  did  also  in  the  previous 
Lecture,  anything  that  savours  of  epistemology. 
For  that  matter,  there  is  more  than  enough  to 
occupy  us  on  the  purely  psychological  plane ;  the 
introspective  resemblance  between  pleasantness- 
unpleasantness,  on  the  one  hand,  and  certain 
sensations,  on  the  other,  has  been  urged  again 
and  again  in  the  history  of  psychology.  I  take 
two  modern  instances.  Bourdon,  in  1893,  iden- 
tifies pleasure  with  the  sensation  of  tickling. 
"  Le  plaisir  est  une  sensation  speciale  et  non  pas 
une  sensation  commune  ni  une  propriete  de 
toutes  les  sensations ;  et  il  est  de  meme  nature 
que  la  sensation  speciale  de  chatouillement." 
"Le  plaisir  serait  un  chatouillement  diffus, 
de  faible  intensite,  tandis  qu'au  contraire  le 
chatouillement  serait  en  quelque  sort  un  plaisir 
G  81 


82  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

bien  localise  et  de  grande  intensite."  ^  In  1894 
von  Frey,  working  from  the  opposite  direction, 
identifies  unpleasantness  with  pain,  while  he 
makes  pleasantness  a  negative  matter,  absence 
or  cessation  of  pain.  "Der  Schmerz,"  he  says, 
'*  [ist]  die  einfachste  Form  des  Unlustgefuhls " ; 
and  "die  tagliche  Erfahrmig  lehrt,  dass  es  die 
Aufhebung  des  Schmerzes  ist,  welche  uns  Lust 
bereitet."  ^  Bourdon  is  able  to  quote,  on  behalf 
of  his  theory,  authorities  as  high  as  Descartes 
and  Bain ;  ^  and  von  Frey,  though  he  does  not 
say  so,  is  championing  a  doctrine  of  pleasure 
which  is  as  old  as  Plato/ 

I  do  not,  however,  intend  to  enter  upon  the 
history  of  our  subject;  that  would  take  me  too 
far  afield.  I  intend  only  to  expound  and  criti- 
cise one  notable  attempt,  made  very  recently, 
to  bring  the  sense-feelings,  all  simple  affective 
experience,  under  the  rubric  of  sensation.  I 
refer  to  Stumpf's  paper  Ueber  Gefilhlsempfin- 
dungen,  which  was  read  before  the  Society  for 
Experimental  Psychology  at  Wlirzburg  in  April, 
1906,  and  was  published  in  December  of  the 
same  year,  with  slight  additions  and  modifica- 
tions, in  the  Zeitschrifl  Jur  Psychologie.^ 

The  range  of  Stumpf's  inquiry  is  limited  to 
what  are  ordinarilv  called  the  'sense-feelings,' 


SENSATION  AND  AFFECTION  83 

die  sinnlichen  GefiXlile.  These  include,  "first, 
the  purely  bodily  pains  (that  is,  those  which 
appear  without  any  essential  concernment  of 
intellectual  functions  *),  whether  they  are  set 
up  from  without  or  from  within  the  organism; 
secondly,  the  feeling  of  bodily  well-being  in  its 
more  general  and  its  more  special  forms,  the  latter 
including  the  pleasure-component  in  tickling, 
the  feeling  produced  by  itching,  and  the  sexual 
feelings ;  and  lastly  the  agreeableness  and  dis- 
agreeableness  that  may  be  connected,  in  the 
most  various  degrees  or  gradations,  with  the 
sensations  of  all  or  nearly  all  the  '  special '  senses, 
with  temperatures,  odours,  tastes,  tones,  colours." 
The  point  of  view  which  the  inquiry  adopts  is 
primarily  descriptive.^ 

We  begin  with  a  discussion  of  the  three  pos- 
sible views  of  elementary  affective  process."^ 
The  affection  may  be  an  attribute  of  sensation,  — 
an  'affective  tone'  of  sensation.  Or  the  affec- 
tion may  be  a  mental  element,  distinct  from  and 
coordinate  w^th  sensation.  Or,  lastly,  the  affec- 
tion may  be  itself  a  sensation,  a  sensation  of  a 
special  kind,  like  the  visual  or  the  kinsesthetic. 

The  first  of  these  three  views  Stumpf  disposes 
of  as  it  deserves.     It  is  a  view  which  received  its 

*  I  take  this  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  "ohne  integrier- 
ende  Beteiligung  intellektueller  Funktionen." 


84  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

coup  de  grace  at  the  hands  of  Kiilpe  in  1893,^  — 
the  year  of  publication,  be  it  remembered,  of 
the  fourth  edition  of  the  Physiologische  Psy- 
chologies in  which  affection  still  figures  as  a  'third 
attribute'  of  sensation.^  Kiilpe  points  out  that 
affection  cannot  be  an  attribute  of  sensation  of 
the  same  sort  as  the  recognised  attributes,  be- 
cause it  has  attributes  of  its  own.  Sensations 
show  differences  of  intensity,  quality,  time,  and 
(in  some  instances)  space;  affection  shows  dif- 
ferences of  intensity,  quality,  and  time.  Ziehen, 
in  the  1906  edition  of  his  Leitfadeii,  seeks  to  meet 
this  argument.  "Dem  gegeniiber  verweise  ich 
Sie  auf  das  Beispiel  eines  chemischen  Prozesses 
(z.  B.  einer  Oxydation),  welclie  selbst  eine  be- 
stimmte  Intensitat  und  Qualitat  hat  und  oft 
zugleich  noch  von  einem  Liclit  von  bestimmter 
Intensitat  und  Qualitat  begleitet  ist."  ^^  Stumpf 
replies,  rightly,  that  the  attribute  of  an  object, 
as  these  terms  are  employed  in  everyday  life, 
is  one  thing;  and  that  the  attribute  of  a  sensa- 
tion, as  these  terms  are  employed  in  psychology, 
is  another  and  a  very  different  thing.  An 
'object'  is  an  empirical  collocation  of  attributes 
which  are  themselves  sensations  or  sense-deriva- 
tives ;  we  can  think  away  the  scent  of  a  flower, 
and  leave  the  flower  a  concrete  object  as  it  was 
before.     But    the    attributes    of    sensation    are 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  AFFECTIVE  TONE     85 

known  only  by  abstraction ;  they  are  the  modes 
of  variation  of  a  wholly  simple  contents ;  we 
cannot  think  any  one  of  them  away  without  at 
the  same  time  thinking  aw^ay  the  sensation/^ 
Stumpf's  rejoinder  thus  leads  us  to  Kiilpe's 
second  argument :  that  the  annihilation  of  an 
attribute  of  sensation  carries  with  it  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  sensation,  whereas  a  sensation 
may  be  non-affective,  indifferent,  and  still  be 
far  removed  from  disappearance.  I  do  not  see 
how  these  arguments  can  possibly  be  answered, 
and  I  agree  with  Stumpf  that  "man  sich  wundern 
muss,  wie  [die  betreffende  Anschauung]  immer 
noch  von  manchen  festgehalten  werden  kann."  ^^ 
Yet  we  find  Marshall,  in  January  of  the  present 
year,  positing  an  '  algedonic  quality '  of  sensation  : 
"each  elementary  presentation  must  display 
either  agreeableness  or  disagreeableness,  or 
indifference  which  is  a  mode  of  transition  be- 
tween the  other  two."  ^^  What  is  this  *mode  of 
transition '  ?  If  it  is  really  indifference,  neither 
pleasantness  nor  unpleasantness,  it  is  nothing 
at  all ;  and  how  can  nothing  at  all  be  a  *  qual- 
ity '  ?  If  it  is  indifference  in  the  affective  sense, 
the  indifference  of  satiety,  of  '  having  had  enough 
of  a  thing,'  of  'being  tired  of  it,'  then  —  as 
Ziegler  says  —  "hat  das  Gleichgiiltige  stets  etwas 
vom   Unangenehmen   an   sich";^^     indifference 


86  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

is  a  stage  on  the  road  to  aversion,  nausea,  dis- 
gust; it  is  already  unpleasant,  not  a  *mode  of 
transition'  from  pleasantness  to  unpleasantness. 
I  have  been  told  that,  in  philosophy,  errors  never 
die;  and  it  may  be  that  they  die  hard,  in  psy- 
chology, because  that  earlier  habit  of  immortality 
is  still  strong  upon  them. 

There  remain,  then,  the  alternatives :  that 
affection  is  a  second  mental  element,  and  that 
it  is  a  kind  of  sensation.  Stumpf  here  throws 
the  burden  of  proof  upon  the  advocates  of  affec- 
tive independence.  Unless  the  differences  be- 
tween sensation  and  affection  are  primary  and 
universal,  the  separation  of  the  processes  runs 
counter  to  the  scientific  principle  of  economy. ^^ 
He  accordingly  reviews  the  three  principal  argu- 
ments of  his  opponents :  the  relation  of  sense- 
feeling  to  emotion,  the  subjectivity  of  feeling, 
and  its  lack  of  spatial  localisation  and  extension. ^^ 
What  he  has  to  say  on  these  topics  we  already 
know;  his  objections  were  mentioned  and  al- 
lowed their  due  weight  in  the  preceding  Lecture. 
You  will  remember  that  he  makes  a  sharp  divi- 
sion, in  his  own  system,  between  sense-feeling 
and  the  higher,  intellectual  feelings,  the  Affekte 
oder  Gemutshewegungen,  and  that  he  definitely 
rejects  the  two  remaining  criteria.  I  will  only 
add  now  that  he  has,  in  my  opinion,  passed  too 


CUTANEOUS  AND  ORGANIC  PAIN         87 

lightly  over  certain  other  proposed  criteria ;  and 
that  the  appeal  to  a  *  principle  of  economy'  is 
worth  very  little,  because  the  appeal  in  science 
lies  always  to  the  facts  of  observation.  How- 
ever, it  is  precisely  to  the  facts  that  Stumpf 
next  takes  us. 

He  opens  with  a  section  on  'sensations  of 
pain,  and  the  sensations  of  pleasure  (Lustemp- 
findungen)  that  take  their  origin  from  cutaneous 
stimulations  or  from  vegetative  states . '  ^  ^  And  he 
makes  every  effort,  at  the  outset,  to  prove  that 
pain  is  a  department  of  sense,  and  the  pain-qual- 
ity a  quality  of  sensation.  "  Es  ist  also  die  Isolie- 
rung  dieser  Empfindungsqualitat,  sozusagen  die 
Reinzlichtung  des  Gefiihlssinnes,  gelungen."  ^^ 
**Die  principielle  Frage,  auf  die  es  fur  uns 
gegenwartig  ankommt,  ist  .  .  .  ob  es  Schmerz- 
empfindungen  in  der  gleichen  Bedeutung  wie 
Farbenempfindungen ,  Geruchsempfindungen 
gehe,  als  echte  und  eigentliche  Silmesqualita- 
ten."^^  Let  me  say  at  once  that  nobody,  who 
knows  anything  at  first  hand  of  the  psychology  of 
cutaneous  sensation,  would  be  tempted  nowadays 
to  traverse  this  position.  That  there  is  a  sense 
of  pain  is  a  fact  as  well  established  as  that  there 
is  a  sense  of  pressure.  So  far,  I  agree  entirely 
with  Stumpf.  Nevertheless,  there  are  two  points 
in  his  exposition,  two  very  closely  related  points, 


88  GEFUIILSEMPFINDUNGEN 

that  seem  to  invite  criticism.  The  first  concerns 
the  nature  of  the  pain-quality,  and  the  second 
the  nature  of  the  unpleasantness  of  pain. 

Stumpf  is  fully  convinced  of  the  painfulness 
of  the  pain-quality.  ''Der  Schmerz  ist  eben 
schmerzhaft,  dass  ist  seine  berechtigte  Eigen- 
tumlichkeit,  daran  kann,  glaube  ich,  selbst  die 
feinste  Psychologic  nichts  andern."  "^  Believers 
in  a  separate  affective  process  regard  the  under- 
lying sensation  in  the  experience  of  pain  as  pain- 
less, schmerzlos;  "wahrend  wir  uns  zu  der 
Ansicht  gefiihrt  sehen,  dass  das  sogenannte 
Schmerzgeflihl  die  sinnliche  Qualitat  selbst  ist, 
und  dass  der  Schmerz  in  jener  angeblichen 
nur  zugrundeliegenden  Sinnesempfindung  schon 
durchaus  komplett  gegeben  ist."  -^  A  difficulty 
arises,  of  course,  in  connection  with  the  sensation 
of  prick  or  sting.  Goldscheider  expressly  re- 
marks that  his  *  secondary  sensation'  need  not 
be  painful ;  under  the  most  favourable  conditions 
it  is  a  '' iem-stecheiides  Geflihl  von  nicht  schmerz- 
liaftem  Charakter." -^  iVnd  the  '  Stichempfind- 
ungen '  aroused  directly  by  cutaneous  stimulation 
are  not  painful.  Stumpf  meets  the  difficulty  by 
suggesting  that  the  sensations  in  question  may 
belong  to  the  sense  of  pressure.  But  he  does 
not,  in  any  case,  regard  it  as  momentous  ;  whether 
the  'Stichempfindung'  is  mediated  by  the  nerves 


PAIN  AND  UNPLEASANTNESS  89 

of  pressure  or  by  the  nerves  of  pain,  the  important 
thing  is  the  appearance  of  pain  as  a  sensible 
quality. 

That  is  the  first  point.  In  the  second  place, 
Stumpf  looks  upon  the  unpleasantness  of  pain, 
not  as  concomitant  affective  process,  but  as  the 
qualitative  character  of  pain  itself.  To  add  an 
affective  tone  of  unpleasantness,  he  says,  "scheint 
mir  zwecklos."  ^^  Why  should  you  call  upon 
a  second  genus  of  mental  elements  to  make  a 
thing  what  it  is  in  its  own  right,  —  to  make  a 
pain  painful  ?  ^^  We  hear  sometimes  of  pleas- 
urable pains ;  but  the  phrase  is  misleading. 
You  may,  perhaps,  have  pain-sensations  and 
agreeable  sensations  at  one  and  the  same  time 
from  different  regions  of  the  skin,  and  the  two 
qualities  may  possibly  enhance  each  other,**  by  a 
kind  of  contrast"  ;  but  that  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  feeling  an  agreeable  pain.  The  pleasures  of 
asceticism  and  of  martyrdom  are  matters  of  emo- 
tion ;  the  sensible  pain  either  persists,  but  is 
held  in  check  by  intellectual  rapture,  or  disap- 
pears in  the  analgesia  of  the  ecstatic  state. 
Pain,  then,  falls  into  line  with  the  other  sensa- 
tions just  by  reason  of  the  fact,  paradoxical  as 
it  may  seem,  that  it  has  no  affective  tone.-^ — 

I  pointed  out  in  my  first  Lecture  that  stimu- 
lation of  a  pain-spot  gives  qualitatively  different 


90  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

sensations,  according  to  the  intensity  of  the 
stimulus.  At  a  very  low  intensity  we  have  itch; 
then  prick  or  sting;  and  lastly,  at  higher  inten- 
sities, pain.  The  observation  demands  a  certain 
amount  of  technical  skill,  and  calls  for  a  respon- 
sive pain-spot ;  but  I  cannot  doubt  its  accuracy. 
It  seems,  then,  doubly  unfortunate  that  Stumpf 
has  claimed  the  sensation  of  itch  as  a  sensation 
of  "pleasure?^  Psychophysically,  it  is  a  weak 
sensation  of  pain;  itch  passes  into  sting,  and 
sting  into  pain,  within  the  same  peripheral 
organ.  Psychologically,  itch  is  not  pleasure, 
but  itch;  its  quality  is  not  pleasurable,  but 
itchy.  The  psychophysical  question  was  raised 
by  Stumpf  only  in  order  to  be  dismissed,  and 
I  do  not  wish  on  my  side  to  intrude  psy- 
chophysical considerations  into  a  piece  of 
descriptive  psychology.  I  merely  note  that 
"identische  Nervenf asern  "  ^^  presumably  medi- 
ate '  Lustempfindungen '  as  well  as  pain  and 
painless  sting.  But  the  psychological  argu- 
ment is  important.  In  a  passage  already 
quoted,  Stumpf  speaks  of  "das  durch  Jucken 
entstehende  Gefiihl"  and  of  the  "Lustkom- 
ponente  des  Kitzels."  In  both  expressions, 
the  pleasure  seems  to  be  something  additional 
to,  superadded  upon,  the  sense-quality  proper. 
The    feeling    produced    hy    itching,    or    arising 


PAIN  AND  UNPLEASANTNESS  91 

through  itch,  is  not  —  if  language  means  any- 
thing —  the  itch-quality  itself ;  and  if  itch  is  a 
special  form  of  pleasurable  sensation,  there 
must  be  some  mark  or  sign  upon  it  to  inform 
us  of  the  fact.  In  pain,  the  quality  tells  its 
own    story;    pain    is    painful.     How   does    itch 

—  which,  by  the  same  reasoning,  is  just  itchy 

—  tell  us  that  it  is  pleasant  ? 

Let  us  see  how  the  psychologist  of  affection 
would  read  the  facts.  Itch,  he  would  say,  is  a 
sensible  quality  which  is  ordinarily  attended  by 
pleasantness.  Itch  passes  into  sting,  which 
may  be  weakly  pleasant,  or  indifferent,  or  slightly 
unpleasant.  Sting  passes  into  pain,  which  is 
ordinarily  attended  by  unpleasantness.  Under 
certain  circumstances,  itch  may  be  unpleasant ; 
an  itch  that  is  widely  diffused  over  the  skin,  or 
that  persists  for  a  long  time,  and  more  especially 
an  itch  that  is  both  widely  diffused  and  of  long 
duration,  may  be  distinctly  unpleasant.  Here, 
as  elsewhere  in  sensation,  space  and  time  may 
produce  the  effect  of  intensity. ^^  Pain  is,  of 
course,  always  painful,  in  the  sense  that  it  always 
shows  the  pain-quality;  it  is  painful,  that  is, 
just  as  sting  is  stinging  and  itch  is  itchy.  I 
cannot  understand  how  Stumpf  reaches  the  con- 
clusion that,  for  the  advocates  of  an  independent 
affective  process,  the  pain-quality  ceases  to  be 


92  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

pain,  becomes  schmerzlos.  But  the  pain-quality 
need  not  always  be  unpleasant,  —  that  is  the 
point  upon  which  issue  must  be  taken  with 
Stumpf.  It  is  not  easy  to  find  instances,  though 
I  think  that  they  are  not  uncommon  in  daily  life. 
Ebbinghaus  cites  the  scratching  of  an  irritated 
area  of  the  skin :  ^^  and  it  is  true,  in  my  obser- 
vation, that  if  you  rub  the  nails  of  the  right-hand 
fingers  briskly  up  and  down  over  the  back  of  the 
left  hand  you  get,  particularly  when  the  hand  is 
dry  and  the  skin  a  little  rough,  lines  of  pain  that 
are  undeniably  pleasant ;  though  the  consequent 
after-image  is  sore,  and  undeniably  unpleasant. 
Kelchner  says,  apropos  of  one  of  her  experi- 
ments:  "hier  macht  Vp.  die  Angabe,  dass  das 
Abklingen  des  physischen  Schmerzes  von  schwa- 
cher  Lust  begleitet  sei,  —  ein  Ausspruch,  der 
wieder  den  Empfindungscharakter  des  Schmerzes 
zu  bezeugen  scheint."  ^^  The  sensory  character 
of  pain  is  above  the  need  of  witnesses ;  but  the 
testimony  to  the  possible  pleasantness  of  weakly 
intensive  pain  is  valuable.  Stumpf 's  illustration 
of  pain-sensations  {i.e.  disagreeable  sensations) 
and  agreeable  sensations,  set  up  simultaneously 
at  different  parts  of  the  skin,  and  enhancing  each 
other  by  a  sort  of  contrast,  is,  of  course,  hypotheti- 
cal only ;  it  is  not  intended  to  describe  an  expe- 
rience of  his  own.     For  that  reason,  and  also 


CUTANEOUS  AND  ORGANIC  PLEASURE     93 

because  it  raises  further  questions  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  attention  and  of  the  nature  of  the 
contrast-effect,  we  need  not  seriously  consider  it. 

Which,  now,  has  made  out  the  better  case  ? 
Stumpf,  who  terms  itch  a  Lustempfindung  and 
pain  an  Unlustempflndung,  or  the  affective  psy- 
chologist who  declares  that  both  itch  and  pain 
may  be,  according  to  circumstances,  pleasant, 
indifferent,  or  unpleasant  ?  — 

I  may  pass  over  Stumpf 's  mention  of  the  inter- 
nal, organic  pains. ^^  When  we  turn  to  his  dis- 
cussion of  the  sensations  of  pleasure,  we  find 
the  same  general  difficulty  that  I  have  just  re- 
marked in  the  special  instance  of  itch.  *'An- 
nehmlichkeit,  Wohlsein,"  he  says,  "[ist]  die 
zweite  Hauptqualitat  des  Gefuhlssinnes."  ^^  And 
he  distinguishes,  among  cutaneous  pleasures, 
tickling,  itch,  and  lust ;  among  vegetative  pleas- 
ures, satiety,  repose,  and  general  comfortable- 
ness {allgemeines  Wohlhehagen).  Yet  he  says 
that  the  question  of  the  "  Gleichartigkeit  aller 
Lustempfindungen  "  may  be  left  open  !  ^^  Now, 
if  Annehmlichkeit  is  a  sensible  quality,  there 
must  obviously  be  different  kinds  of  it ;  how  do 
we  distinguish  itch  from  tickling,  tickling  from 
lust,  lust  from  satiety,  and  so  on,  save  by  their 
qualitative  differences  .^  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
all  the  sense-pleasures  are  of  the  same  kind,  then 


94  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

certainly  such  diverse  things  as  lust  and  satiety 
cannot  be  exhaustively  described  as  *  sense- 
pleasures  ' ;  they  are  that,  and  they  are  something 
that  is  qualitatively  differentiated  as  well.  Is  it 
not  clear  that,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world, 
Stumpf  cannot  wholly  rid  himself  of  the  doctrine 
that  he  is  combating,  —  that  this  doctrine  creeps 
into  the  argument  with  all  the  seeming  inevitable- 
ness  of  fact  ?  ^^ 

Stumpf 's  second  section  deals  with  the  'affec- 
tive tone'  of  the  remaining  senses,  the  agreeable- 
ness  and  disagreeableness  of  temperatures,  press- 
ures, odours,  tastes,  colours,  tones. ^  He  begins 
by  drawing  a  valid  distinction  between  very 
intensive  and  moderate  or  weak  stimulation. 
Where  the  stimulus  is  very  strong,  or  abnormally 
strong,  he  says,  it  is  likely  to  involve  pain-organs, 
over  and  above  the  organ  to  which  it  is  specif- 
ically addressed.  Temperature-pains  and  press- 
ure-pains are  pains  proper,  due  to  stimulation 
of  the  cutaneous  pain-spots.  The  pains  of 
blinding  light  and  of  deafening  noise  are,  intro- 
spectively,  of  essentially  similar  character,  and 
may  be  referred,  w  ith  a  high  degree  of  probability, 
to  contraction  of  the  iris  and  of  the  muscles  of 
the  middle  ear.^^  All  this  we  may  cheerfully 
grant ;   and  its  result  is  that  certain  experiences, 


THE  SPECIAL  SENSES  95 

which  at  first  thought  would  seem  to  fall  within 
the  sphere  of  pressure  or  temperature,  sight  or 
hearing,  are  in  reality  phenomena  of  cutaneous 
or  organic  pain,  and  thus  have  already  received 
implicit  consideration  in  the  foregoing  section. 
We  stand,  theoretically,  where  we  stood  at  the 
completion  of  that  section.  *'Aehnliche  Be- 
trachtungen,"  Stumpf  goes  on,  *'lassen  sich  auch 
iiber  die  peripherisch  durch  starke  Reizungen 
erregten  Lustempfindungen  anstellen."  ^^  Here, 
I  think,  he  falls  into  that  schematism  as  regards 
pleasure  which  is  one  of  the  besetting  sins  of  the 
sensationalists.  Are  they  not  all  apt  to  give  full 
details  concerning  pain,  and  then  to  say,  offhand, 
'Just  the  same  thing  holds,  mutatis  mutandis, 
of  pleasure '  ?  The  passage  must  mean  that 
pleasures  of  touch  or  temperature,  sight  or  sound, 
aroused  by  intensive  peripheral  stimulation,  de- 
pend for  their  pleasurableness  upon  the  coexci- 
tation  of  the  organs  of  tickling,  itch,  lust,  etc. 
What  is  Stumpf  thinking  of.^  The  'feel'  of 
silk  next  the  skin  is  exceedingly  pleasant,  —  but 
largely  so,  most  of  us  would  say,  because  it  does 
not  tickle.  And  silk  is  not  an  intensive  stimulus. 
It  is  pleasant  to  come  into  a  warm  room  when 
one  is  chilled  with  the  cold.  But  while,  under 
such  circumstances,  we  may  get  circulatory  sen- 
sations of  tingling,  it  is  not  necessary,  in  my  expe- 


96  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

rience,  that  we  have  either  tickle  or  itch.  It  is 
pleasant  to  turn  the  eyes  from  the  white  glare  of 
snow  to  the  dull  green  of  fir,  and  it  is  a  relief 

to    the    ear  when    a    factory  whistle    ceases    to 

t/ 

sound.  But  the  eyergreens  and  the  silence  are 
not  intensive  peripheral  stimuli.  Perhaps 
Stumpf  has  in  mind  such  things  as  the  pleasure 
of  violent  bodily  exercise  and  the  supreme 
comfort  of  a  Turkish  bath,  —  organic  rather 
than  peripheral  pleasures.  But  where  is  the 
analogue  of  these  pleasures  in  the  domain  of 
sight  or  hearing  ?  — 

We  come  now^  to  the  crux  of  the  w^hole  argu- 
ment :  to  the  explanation  of  the  agreeableness 
and  disagreeableness  of  moderate  or  weak 
stimulation  in  the  departments  of  vision  and 
audition,  taste  and  smell.  This  'affective  tone' 
Stumpf  regards  as  a  'concomitant  sensation' 
("das  Wort  Mitempfindung  im  weitesten  Sinne 
genommen").^^  Psychologically,  a  concomitant 
sensation  is,  of  course,  a  sensation  like  any 
other,  an  elementary  mental  process  with  a  cer- 
tain status  in  consciousness  and  a  certain  set  of 
attributes.  We  should  therefore  expect,  since 
on  Stumpf's  own  admission  there  is  no  such 
thing,  in  strictness,  as  indissoluble  association,^^ 
that  he  would  at  once  cast  about  for  instances  of 
dissociation,   and   would   seek  to   show   us   the 


THE  SPECIAL  SENSES  97 

'affective  sensation'  in  isolation.  Instead  of 
doing  this,  lie  offers  us  reasons  for  shifting  the 
scene  of  our  debate  from  sensation  to  idea. 
Why  is  it,  he  asks,  that  we  can  not  sense  the 
agreeableness  of  a  colour  or  a  scent  alone, 
without  being  obliged  at  the  same  time  to  sense 
the  colour  as  visual  and  the  scent  as  olfactory 
quality  ?  ^' 

Well !  Stumpf  replies,  there  might  be  anatomi- 
cal reasons.  It  might  be  a  matter  of  physio- 
logical fact  that  the  excitation  underlying  agree- 
ableness cannot  be  set  up  independently  of  the 
excitation  underlying  colour  or  odour.  And  after 
all,  it  was  only  the  other  day  that  physiologists 
succeeded  in  separately  stimulating  the  cutane- 
ous pain-organs ;  here  too,  then,  the  future 
may  bring  results  that  we  cannot  now  foresee. 
Or,  again,  we  might  think  that  colour  and  the 
agreeableness  of  colour  are  intimately  fused,  as 
are,  e.g.,  taste  and  smell,  or  the  two  tones  of  the 
octave.  Or,  lastly,  it  is  possible,  even  prob- 
able, that  the  concomitant  sensations  of  agree- 
ableness and  disagreeableness  are  sensations  of 
central  origin.  In  that  case,  we  can  separate 
them  from  their  companions,  if  at  all,  only  by 
change  of  central  conditions,  not  by  modifica- 
tion of  peripheral  stimulation. 

I  would  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  two 


98  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

of  these  arguments  are  psychophysical,  and  that 
the  third,  if  it  is  not  psychophysical,  is  irrelevant. 
To  talk  of  anatomical  reasons  for  the  conjunc- 
tion of  colour  with  agreeableness  of  colour,  and 
to  talk  of  that  agreeableness  as  a  centrally  excited 
concomitant  sensation,  —  to  talk  in  this  way  is 
to  leave  the  field  of  descriptive  psychology  for 
the  field  of  psychophysics.  And  it  seems  to  me, 
in  general,  that  Stumpf  is  inclined  to  bar  out 
psychophysical  reference  where  it  does  not  sup- 
port his  views,  and  to  bring  it  in,  without  apology, 
wherever  it  can  furnish  him  with  even  a  specu- 
lative confirmation/^  I  know  very  well  that 
sweeping  criticism  of  this  kind  is  likely  to  be  both 
unfair  and  ineffective.  I  have,  however,  too 
much  respect  for  Stumpf  to  be  consciously  un- 
fair, and  too  serious  a  concern  for  my  own  posi- 
tion to  be  consciously  ineffective.  My  general 
impression  is  as  I  have  stated ;  and  I  believe  that, 
if  you  read  Stumpf's  paper  for  yourselves,  you 
will  come  to  the  same  conclusion.  At  all  events, 
the  appeal  in  these  two  cases  lies,  frankly,  to 
psychophysics.  So  it  does  also  in  the  third 
argument,  if  that  is  relevant.  Psychologically, 
the  fusion  of  the  octave,  under  the  most  favour- 
able conditions,  is  analysable  into  its  two  con- 
stituent tones :  here,  then,  is  no  analogy.  Psy- 
chologically, the  blends  of  taste  and  smell  are 


THE  SPECIAL  SENSES  99 

not  analysable;  the  most  experienced  psycholo- 
gist cannot  tell,  by  introspection,  that  the  'taste' 
of  his  coffee  is  partly  taste  and  partly  smell. 
Only  by  psychophysical  procedure  —  by  hold- 
ing the  nose,  or  what  not  —  can  the  components 
in  the  blend  be  separated.  In  other  words,  it 
is  only  as  subject-matter  of  psychophysics  that 
the  taste-smell  blend  may  be  termed  a  fusion. 
And  the  analogy  that  it  affords  to  the  fusion  of 
colour  and  agreeableness  of  colour  is,  therefore, 
a  psychophysical  analogy.  There  remains  the 
possibility  that  we  may  some  day  isolate  the 
pleasure-organs  of  vision  as  we  have  already  iso- 
lated the  pain-organs  of  the  skin.  How  serious 
that  is,  I  leave  you  to  judge  for  yourselves. 

My  objection  is  not  by  any  means  to  psycho- 
physics  as  such.  I  do  object,  however,  to  the 
basing  of  a  psychological  argument  upon  a 
speculative  psychophysics.  And  we  have  a 
peculiar  right  to  object,  in  the  present  instance, 
because  Stumpf  promised  us  a  descriptive  psy- 
chology. "  Wir  wollen  nicht,"  he  says,  **  Behaupt- 
ungen  tiber  die  anatomischen  Gebilde  oder  die 
physiologischen  Prozesse  aufstellen,  die  den 
sinnlichen  Gefuhlen  zugrunde  liegen."^^  What 
else,  then,  is  he  now  doing  ?  His  text  stands  as 
I  have  given  it ;  psychological  considerations  are 
relegated  to  a  footnote.     In  the  text,  Stumpf  has 


100  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

accepted  the  inseparability  of  colour  and  agree- 
ableness  of  colour  as  a  fact ;  in  the  note,  he  cites 
four  cases  which  appear  to  tell  against  the  fact, 
—  though  he  himself  practically  reduces  them  to 
two.  Scripture  infers,  from  his  experiments  on 
association  of  ideas,  that  feeling  may  stand  alone 
in  consciousness ;  but  the  results,  we  are  told, 
admit  of  very  various  interpretations.  Vogt 
reaches  the  same  conclusion  by  way  of  his  method 
of  hypnotic  suggestion;  '*uber  die  Brauchbar- 
keit  dieser  Methode,"  says  Stumpf,  '*habe  ich 
kein  Urteil."  There  remain  Kiesow's  investi- 
gation of  the  taste-feelings,  in  which  sensible 
was  paralleled  by  affective  discrimination,  and 
Stumpf's  own  work  with  beating  and  dissonant 
tones.  Kiesow,  however,  was  simply  attempt- 
ing a  quantitative  form  of  the  method  of  im- 
pression ;  and  Stumpf's  experiences  simply  illus- 
trate the  occurrence  of  affective  habituation  or 
adaptation. ^^ 

We  are  still  only  on  the  threshold  of  the  dis- 
cussion. The  essential  thing  in  Stumpf's  view, 
you  remember,  is  not  that  colour  and  agreeable- 
ness  of  colour  should  be  separable  in  sensation, 
but  that  they  should  be  separable  in  idea.  He 
clearly  sees  —  no  doubt,  he  saw  very  early  in 
the  course  of  this  inquiry  —  that  the  agreeable- 
ness  and  disagreeableness  of  tone  and  colour, 


IS  THERE  AN  AFFECTIVE  IMAGE?     101 

taste  and  smell,  cannot  possibly  be  constituted 
a  class  of  sensations  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of 
that  term,  —  cannot  possibly  be  put  on  a  level 
with  pain  and  tickle  and  itch.  The  psycho- 
physical hypotheses  which  I  have  just  been 
criticising  are  therefore  introduced  to  explain 
how  two  mental  processes,  possibly  separate  in 
idea,  may  be  altogether  inseparable  in  sensa- 
tion. If  the  explanation  is  accepted,  if  we  waive 
the  objection  that  something  which  is  termed 
a  sensation  cannot  be  separately  sensed,  then  we 
are  free  to  enter  upon  the  argument  which  will 
lead  us  through  separateness  in  idea  to  the  theory 
of  central  concomitance.  You  see,  I  hope,  how 
pivotal  those  psychophysical  hypotheses  were, 
although  Stumpf  brings  them  in  as  it  were  paren- 
thetically, by  way  of  excursus.  A  little  specula- 
tive physiology  —  and  we  are  prepared  to  revise 
our  definition  of  sensation,  and  to  look  for  proof 
of  sensory  character  in  the  realm  of  ideas  ! 

3^his  whole  question  of  ideation,  or  (to  put  it 
in  more  elementary  terms)  of  the  existence  of  an 
affective  image,  is  very  thorny.  More  than  a 
decade  ago  I  argued,  as  against  Eibot,  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  affective  reproduction,  but 
only  affective  renewal  or  revival.^^  I  should 
argue  to  the  same  effect  to-day,  though  with 
greater  caution  in  statement  and  with  less  as- 


102  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

surance  of  carrying  conviction.  For  before  the 
question  can  be  settled,  we  must,  I  think,  know 
a  great  deal  more  than  we  do  of  sense-imagery, 
and  particularly  of  the  range  of  images  of  organic 
sensations.  In  an  early  number  of  Wood- 
bridge's  Journal  I  gave  an  account  of  my  own 
organic  images,  such  as  they  are;  expressed 
myself  as  rather  sceptical  of  any  great  freedom  or 
variety  of  organic  imagery  in  general;  and  urged 
the  importance  of  further  work.^^  Let  me  repeat 
here  that  further  work  —  systematic  observa- 
tion by  competent  observers  —  is  badly  needed. 
Stumpf,  now,  takes  a  positive  attitude,  while 
he  admits  the  fact  of  individual  differences. 
"Die  Schmerz-  und  Lustempfindungen,  die 
durch  Hautreizungen  oder  durch  die  Tatigkeit 
der  vegetativen  Organe  bedingt  sind,  hinterlassen 
zweifellos  auch  Gedachtnisbilder,  blosse  Vorstel- 
lungen."  ^^  He  is  apparently  speaking  from 
personal  experience,  since  he  says  later:  "auch 
mir^scheint  z.  B.  die  Vorstellung  eines  Stich- 
schmerzes  moglich,  und  zwar  mit  dem  Charak- 
ter  einer  reproduzierten  Vorstellung  in  dem- 
selben  Sinne,  wie  wir  von  Farben-  und  Tonvor- 
stellung  reden."  ^^  I  wish  that  we  had  been 
given  more  details.  The  passage  from  which  the 
first  quotation  is  taken  goes  on  to  point  out  the 
occurrence  of  hallucinations  of  pain,  —  another 


IS  THERE  AN  AFFECTIVE  IMAGE?      103 

subject,  surely,  which  myites  psychological  in- 
vestigation. The  paragraph  ends,  rather  curi- 
ously, with  the  words,  ''ahnliches  auch  bei  den 
Vorstellungen  der  Wolllistigen."  I  say  'curi- 
ously,' because  the  words  ought  to  mean  that  the 
voluptuary  has  images,  or  even  hallucinations,  of 
his  own  lust-sensations,  whereas  it  seems  obvious 
that  the  images  must  be  images  of  some  voluptu- 
ous situation,  and  that  lust  itself  is  present,  not 
as  image,  but  as  sensation. 

On  the  topic  of  what  I  should  call  the  affective 
image  proper,  the  image  or  reproduced  idea  of  the 
agreeableness  and  disagreeableness  that  attach  to 
scents  and  colours  and  tones,  Stumpf's  attitude 
is  similarly  positive.  He  speaks  again  from 
personal  experience;  the  affective  image  which 
accompanies  the  memory-image  of  a  major 
triad  or  of  a  Bocklin  picture  seems  to  him  to 
be  distinct  and  vivid. ^^  Since  he  says  on  the 
same  page,  "nattirlich  miissen  die  Falle,  in 
denen  offenbar  Denktatigkeiten  und  Affekte  mit 
im  Spiele  sind,  wie  das  Wohlgefallen  an  einer 
Melodic  oder  einem  Bildwerk,  beiseite  bleiben," 
we  must  suppose  that  he  is,  in  reality,  thinking 
of  the  constituent  tones  in  the  chord  and  the  con- 
stituent colours  in  the  picture,  not  of  the  chord  as 
harmony  and  the  picture  as  work  of  art.  He 
further  remarks  that  these  affective  images  "sehr 


104  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

leicht  in  Gefiihlsempfindungen  iibergehen"  ;  that 
is,  that  we  are  ordinarily  liable  in  their  case  to 
affective  hallucinations,  such  as  occur  only  occa- 
sionally in  the  case,  e.g.,  of  peripheral  pain. 
If  you  ideate  the  sound  of  a  friend's  voice,  or  of 
a  musical  chord,  the  affective  quality  may  be 
as  vivid  as  in  actual  hearing,  while  the  tonal 
quality  has  all  the  marks  of  a  representation. 

There  are,  then,  images  of  the  agreeableness 
and  disagreeableness  which  come  with  the  sensa- 
tions of  the  higher  senses.  They  are  fleeting; 
to  illustrate  them,  Stumpf  has  to  cite  complex 
ideas  like  those  of  a  chord  or  a  picture :  ^^  but 
they  exist.  Now,  then,  we  may  raise  the  critical 
question,  and  ask  whether  colour  image  and  im- 
age of  agreeableness  are  separable,  —  whether,  as 
we  put  it  just  now,  a  colour  and  its  agreeableness 
are  separate  in  idea. 

We  need  not  expect,  Stumpf  says,  that  the 
separation  will  be  easy.  Think  of  odours : 
the  people  w^ho  have  smell-images  can  rarely 
evoke  them  without  at  the  same  time  evoking 
the  memory  picture  of  the  flower  or  fruit  or  what- 
ever it  is  that  the  scent  connects  with  in  sensation. 
"Ich  selbst  kann  mir  u.  a.  den  Heliotropgeruch 
gut  vorstellen,  aber  nur  unter  dieser  Bedingung." 
The  separation,  then,  will  be  difficult:  only,  it 
should  not  be  impossible. ^^ 


COLOURS   AND  TONES  105 

Let  us  look  at  the  senses  in  order.  For  most 
men,  the  single  colour  and  the  single  tone  are,  in 
sensation,  practically  indifferent.  "Es  wird  uns 
oft  recht  schwer,  zu  sagen,  ob  eine  Farbe  mehr 
angenehm  oder  mehr  unangenehm  ist,  oder  ob 
sie  angenehmer  ist  als  eine  andere."  ^^  Indi- 
vidual organisation  and  temporary  disposition 
may  afford  exceptions  to  this  rule:  *'aber  im 
ganzen  sind  die  rein  sinnlichen  Geflihlswirkungen 
isolierter  Farben  (einschliesslich  der  Graunu- 
ancen)  und  isolierter  Tone  (einschliesslich  der 
Gerausche)  relativ  gering."  I  think  that  Stumpf , 
even  with  the  allowances  that  he  makes,  is  here 
arguing  too  schematically.  No  doubt,  a  patch 
of  red  on  the  book-shelf  and  the  sound  of  middle 
C  from  the  piano,  as  they  break  into  our  everyday 
consciousness,  leave  us  "most  uncommon  calm." 
But  many  men  —  Wundt  is  an  example,  among 
psychologists  —  are  extraordinarily  sensitive  to 
the  affective  value  of  single  colours  and  single 
tones ;  and  one  is  surprised  that  Stumpf  himself 
should  so  lightly  brush  aside  the  Tongefilhle. 
Again,  when  colours  and  tones  are  presented 
methodically,  as  by  the  serial  method  or  the 
method  of  paired  comparisons,  it  is  the  ex- 
ception that  they  are  indifferent;  the  rule  is 
definitely  the  other  w^ay.  Perhaps,  however, 
this    is    what    Stumpf    has    in    mind,   when    he 


106  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

refers  to  "  augenblickliehe  Nervendisposition," 
as  he  may  have  Wundt  and  himself  in  mind  when 
he  refers  to  **individuelle  Organisation."  Take, 
then,  more  obvious  cases.  If  isolated  patches 
of  colour  and  isolated  tones  are  usually  indiffer- 
ent, what  of  masses  of  colour:  the  carmine  or 
purple  or  orange  sweep  of  an  uniformly  coloured 
sunset  sky  ?  the  high  blue  of  a  tropical  sea,  the 
white  of  extended  snow,  the  yellow-brown  of  a 
sandy  shore,  the  dull  lead  or  slate  of  lake  or 
ocean  ?  I  am  not  thinking  of  landscape  and  sea- 
scape, of  emotion  and  reflection,  but  of  the  col- 
ours themselves,  given  sensibly  to  the  eye.  And 
what  of  certain  noises :  harsh,  rough,  grating, 
scraping,  crunching,  sickening  noises  ?  Surely, 
there  is  case  upon  case,  instance  upon  instance, 
in  which  colours  and  sounds  possess  a  high  degree 
of  agreeableness  or  disagreeableness.  Stumpf 
ignores  them  all,  and  concludes  that  the  affective 
tone  is  too  weak,  in  sensation,  to  come  separately 
into  consciousness  as  idea.  But  —  cannot  weak 
sensations,  then,  be  ideated  ?  Fechner  believed 
and  Ebbinghaus  believes  that  you  can  ideate  the 
just  noticeable  sensation  and  the  just  noticeable 
difference  between  sensations ;  ^^  is  there  any- 
thing weaker.?  And  apart  from  that,  which  is 
a  technical  matter,  is  it  not  a  fact  of  daily  expe- 
rience  that  weak  sensations    may  be    imaged  ? 


TASTE   AND  SMELL  107 

Think  now  of  a  diminuendo  on  the  violin,  of  the 
faint  anticipatory  glow  of  a  rising  moon,  of  the 
suspicion  of  a  breath  of  garlic  in  a  savoury  salad  : 
if  you  have  images  in  these  sense-departments  at 
all,  you  will  have  no  difficulty  in  imaging  such 
weakest  sensations. 

Stumpf ,  nevertheless,  has  disposed  of  sight  and 
hearing.  He  turns  to  taste  and  smell,  and  first 
of  all  quotes  Nagel's  very  definite  statement  with 
regard  to  smell.  "So  leicht  es  mir  ist,"  we  read 
in  the  Handbuch,  *'  das  mit  einer  Geruchsemp- 
findung  verbundene  Lust-  oder  Unlustgefuhl 
zu  reproduzieren,  so  unmoglich  ist  es  bezuglich 
der  eigentlichen  Geruchsqualitat."  ^^  The  state- 
ment is  definite,  but  none  the  less  ambiguous ; 
for  the  term  'reproduction'  may  cover  a  multi- 
tude of  possible  experiences.  Stumpf  finds,  by 
personal  inquiry,  that  NageFs  '  reproductions '  are 
always  mediated  by  association ;  Nagel  can  call 
up,  e.g.,  the  agreeableness  of  the  smell  of  tar, 
without  reproducing  that  odour  itself,  but  the 
pleasantness  appears  to  depend  *'auf  den,  wenn 
auch  unbewussten,  Nachwirkungen  von  Schif- 
fahrtserlebnissen."  ^^  The  revised  statement  is 
not  wholly  clear ;  but  Stumpf  concludes  that  the 
feeling  in  question  is  rather  a  mood,  a  Stim- 
mung,  than  an  elementary  Gefiihlsempfindung, 
and  so  rules  it  out  of  the  discussion.     Nagel's 


108  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

reproductions  of  the  disagreeableness  of  odours 
are  always  connected  with  other  images  (the 
disagreeableness  of  ammonia,  e.g.,  with  prick- 
ing and  stinging  in  the  nose),  so  that  they  furnish 
no  proof  of  separability  in  idea.  And  notice 
that,  all  through,  we  have  no  strict  guarantee  of 
the  arousal  of  an  affective  image;  Nagel's  *  re- 
productions' may  very  well  be  renewals,  rein- 
statements of  feeling,  —  what  Stumpf  calls  *  hal- 
lucinations.' 

That  is  all  that  we  hear  about  smell.  As  for 
taste,  Stumpf  suggests  that  the  mere  sight  or 
name  of  oysters  may  arouse  in  the  epicure 
"einen  Anflug  des  korperlichen  Wohlbehagens, 
das  sonst  mit  dem  Genuss  verkniipft  ist,  ohne 
dass  der  Geschmack  selbst  ihm  zum  Be- 
wusstsein  kommt."  ^^  It  might,  of  course,  be 
objected  that  the  feeling  in  this  case  is  not  sepa- 
rately ideated ;  it  is  ideated  along  with  visual  sen- 
sations, the  sight  of  the  shell-fish  or  of  the  printed 
word.  Stumpf  replies,  and  from  his  standpoint 
justly,  that  at  all  events  the  feeling  is  ideated 
separately  from  the  taste,  and  that  that  is  the 
important  point. ^^  However,  he  invalidates  his 
own  example  in  a  way  that,  I  confess,  I  should 
not  have  thought  of:  "es  ist  mir  nicht  sicher," 
he  says,  "dass  das  namliche  Gefiihl,  wie  es  an 
die  Geschmacksempfindung  oder  Geschmacks- 


FEELING  OR  EMOTION?  109 

vorstellung  geknlipft  ist,  auch  die  blosse  Gesichts- 
vorstellung  begleitet";  "  he  is  not  sure  that  the 
affective  image  aroused  by  sight  is  the  same  affec- 
tive image  that  accompanies  taste.  My  own 
objection  would  be,  again,  that  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  affective  image,  but  only  of  affective 
reinstatement.  Be  this  as  it  may,  we  hear  no 
more  of  taste. 

In  his  eagerness  for  further  instances,  Stumpf 
quotes  the  colour-feelings  aroused  in  the  artist 
by  the  sight  of  an  etching,  the  feelings  which 
attach  to  poetic  expressions,  and  various  expe- 
riences of  himself  and  of  his  co-workers  in  the 
sphere  of  tones,  —  feelings  accompanying  the 
sight  of  musical  phrases  and  harmonies  and 
rhythms,  the  effort  to  recall  a  modulation,  the 
mere  thought  of  the  tone-colour  of  different 
pianos. ^^  Now  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  in  most 
of  these  cases  we  are  dealing,  not  with  the  affec- 
tive tone  of  sensation,  but  with  something  much 
more  complicated,  —  with  AffeJd  or  Gemilts- 
bewegung.  Stumpf,  it  is  true,  avers  that  the 
look  of  a  "  nichtswlirdige  Tonverbindung"  gives 
him  "einen  Stich"  of  sensory  disagreeableness, 
and  that  the  look  of  *'langgelialtene  konsonante 
Akkorde"  affects  him  in  somewhat  the  same  way 
as  a  warm  bath.  But  it  is,  surely,  very  difficult 
to  think  that  we  are  here  in  presence  of  anything 


110  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

else  than  aesthetic  feelings,  —  feelings  that,  from 
long  and  expert  familiarity  with  the  subject- 
matter,  have  the  promptness  and  immediacy  of 
sense-feelings,  but  that  nevertheless  are  in  origin 
sesthetic.  How  can  you  tell,  by  eye,  that  a  Ton- 
verbindung  is  nichtswilrdig ,  save  as  the  result  of 
musical  training?  The  T onverbindung  is  not 
a  sensation,  and  no  amount  of  practice  can  make 
it  a  sensation.  And  how  can  you  recognise 
long-drawn  consonant  chords  in  the  musical 
score  ?  Not  by  sensation.  Stumpf ,  however,  is 
very  far  from  dogmatic.  "Alle  diese  Beobach- 
tungen  fiihre  ich  mit  einer  gewissen  Reserve  an, 
da  in  Fallen,  wo  die  Tonvorstellung  nicht  merk- 
lich  ist,  doch  auch  das  sinnliche  Gefiihl  meist  nur 
fliichtig  und  schwer  zu  fassen  ist,"  and  contrari- 
wise.^^ Affective  image,  that  is,  is  at  least  very 
largely  a  function  of  tonal  image ;  clear-cut 
separation  of  the  two  is  doubtful. 

I  conclude,  then,  —  I  have  no  choice  but  to 
conclude,  — that  the  proposed  demonstration  of 
the  separateness,  in  idea,  of  sensation  and  sense- 
feeling  has  broken  down.  There  is  no  atom  of 
reliable  evidence.  Remember  that  the  refusal 
to  consider  the  'higher'  feelings,  the  rigorous 
restriction  of  the  argument  to  the  isolated,  single 
sensation,  are  Stumpf 's  refusal  and  Stumpf 's 
restriction,  not  the  critic's.     Stumpf  marked  out 


THE  DUALISTIC  THEORY  111 

his  own  ground;  and  though,  in  my  judgment, 
he  has  more  than  once  shifted  his  position,^^ 
he  finds  himself  obliged  to  retire.  He  retires, 
however,  with  a  very  clever  riposte.  There  are 
psychologists,  he  says,  —  Kulpe  is  one  of  them, 
—  who  posit  a  simple  duality  of  feeling,  a  single 
quality  of  pleasantness  and  a  single  quality  of 
unpleasantness.  Now  we  have  seen  that  cu- 
taneous pain,  which  is  unpleasantness,  may  be 
isolated  and  imaged ;  and  we  have  seen  that  the 
cutaneous  pleasure-sensations  may  be  isolated 
and  imaged.  Ergo,  these  psychologists  must 
admit,  in  general,  the  possible  occurrence  of  the 
separate  affective  image  as  of  the  separate  affec- 
tion itself ;  when  they  reproduce  the  unpleasant- 
ness of  a  bad  smell,  they  have  an  image  of 
cutaneous  pain ;  and  if  they  wish  to  know,  pre- 
cisely, what  the  unpleasantness  of  a  bad  smell  is, 
per  se,  they  have  only  to  isolate  a  cutaneous 
pain-sensation.^^  It  is  needless  to  work  out  the 
reply.  Pain  and  itch,  for  these  psychologists 
as  for  Stumpf  himself,  are  sensations.  Only, 
for  that  very  reason,  they  are  not  affections. 
Stumpf  has  covered  his  retreat ;  but  we  must  not 
let  ourselves  be  blinded  to  the  essential  thing,  — 
the  fact  that  he  has  retreated. 

Now  for  the  rally  !     Stumpf  rallies  —  on  what  ? 
on   descriptive   psychology  ?     Not   at   all !  —  on 


112  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

psychophysics.  Our  principle  of  scientific  econ- 
omy forbade  us  to  make  a  separate  class  for  the 
affective  elements  unless  the  facts  positively 
constrained  us  to  that  conclusion.  Now  let  us 
grant  that  the  agreeableness  of  colours  and  tones 
and  scents  is  separable  from  the  colours  and  tones 
and  scents  themselves  neither  in  sensation  nor  in 
idea.  We  are  not  really  forced  to  the  admis- 
sion ;  but  let  us  bow  to  the  equivocal  nature  of 
the  evidence,  and  make  it.  Are  we  thereby  con- 
strained to  recognise  the  independence  of  the 
affective  process.^  Surely  not:  the  purporting 
affective  element  may  still  be  a  concomitant  or 
accessory  sensation  of  central  origin.^"  The 
central  physiological  mechanism  may  be  of 
such  a  kind  that  the  excitation  of  colour-feeling 
necessarily  implies  the  coexcitation  of  colour- 
sensation.  This  view  becomes,  indeed,  physio- 
logically probable  if  we  assume,  as  many  do, 
that  the  feeling-qualities  of  any  one  sense-de- 
partment are  different  from  the  feeling-qualities 
of  the  rest,  that  the  colour-feelings  and  the  tone- 
feelings  are  qualitatively  distinct.  Ebbinghaus, 
who  places  the  affective  elements  in  a  class  of 
their  own,  nevertheless  regards  them,  physio- 
logically, as  "Nebenwirkungen  derselben  Ur- 
sachen,  die  den  begleitenden  Empfindungcn  und 
Vorstellungen    zugrunde    liegen."  ^^     It    is    but 


SUMMARY  113 

a  short  step  from  this  to  the  view  that  makes 
them  sensations,  ''zentrale  Mitempfindungen." 
To  appreciate  this  final  stand,  we  must  look 
back  over  Stumpf s  whole  essay.  He  started 
out  on  a  question  of  descriptive  psychology; 
we  were  to  hear  nothing  of  genetic  psychology 
or  of  psychophysics.  He  began  by  examining 
three  of  the  alleged  criteria  of  affection  —  the 
three  that  he  himself  took  to  be  the  most  note- 
worthy —  and  found  them  wanting.  He  then 
turned  to  the  consideration  of  the  sense-feelings 
in  detail ;  dealing  first  with  pain,  and  the  cu- 
taneous and  vegetative  pleasures,  and  secondly 
with  the  *aftective  tone'  of  the  remaining  senses. 
He  had  no  difficulty  in  showing  that  pain,  itch, 
tickle,  lust,  and  so  forth  are  sensational  in 
character,  —  though,  as  I  pointed  out,  his  inter- 
pretation leaves  many  facts  out  of  account  (the 
varying  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  of  itch, 
the  possible  pleasantness  of  pain,  etc.).  He 
had  no  particular  difficulty,  on  the  side  of  pain, 
with  the  affective  tone  of  intensive  sensations  of 
the  other  senses,  —  though  I  showed  that  there 
were  distinct  difficulties  on  the  side  of  pleasure. 
His  real  difficulty,  the  difficulty  which  he  himself 
feels  and  acknowledges,  arose  in  connection 
with  the  affective  tone  of  moderately  and  weakly 
intensive   sensations   of  sight   and   sound,   taste 


114  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

and  smell.  And  this  difficulty,  insurmountable 
on  the  plane  of  descriptive  psychology,  is  twice 
avoided  by  appeal  to  speculative  psychophysics. 
Now,  then,  if  I  ask  you:  'What  is  Stumpf's 
psychological  evidence  for  the  existence  of  a 
class  of  Gefuhlsevipfi7idungen  which  shall  replace 
the  affective  elements  of  current  psychology?' 
—  what  have  you  to  reply  ?  Stumpf  offers  his 
whole  article  in  evidence.  I  grant  that  the  article 
is  subjectively  persuasive  and  objectively  im- 
portant; otherwise  I  should  not  have  devoted 
this  hour  to  its  criticism.  But  I  affirm  that,  when 
critically  reviewed,  it  contains  no  stronger  evi- 
dence than  the  principle  of  economy  and  the 
demonstration  that,  as  our  knowledge  of  nerve- 
physiology  goes,  the  existence  of  centrally  excited 
accessory  sensations  is  a  psychophysical  possi- 
bility. The  persuasiveness  of  the  essay,  then, 
I  discount  altogether.  Its  objective  importance 
lies,  I  think,  not  in  what  it  has  shown,  but  in  the 
example  which  it  has  set.  Stumpf  lends  the 
weight  of  his  name  to  a  sensationalistic  theory  of 
affection ;  and  we  may  expect  in  the  near  future, 
both  from  adherents  and  from  opponents  of  that 
theory,  an  industrious  collection  of  psychological 
facts,  psychological  observations,  which  will 
finally  sway  the  balance  in  the  one  direction  or 
in  the  other. 


APPLICATIONS  115 

However,  the  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the 
eating.  Stumpf  adds  a  final  section,  in  which  he 
deals  with  'applications'  of  his  psychophysical 
theory.^  In  the  domain  of  sensation  we  have, 
he  says,  well-developed  methods  and  well-estab- 
lished results.  If,  then,  we  can  only  bring  our- 
selves to  look  upon  affections  as  sensations,  we 
can  attack  them  directly  by  sensation-methods, 
and  can  check  or  control  our  data  by  sensation- 
results.  In  particular,  we  may  expect  by  this 
means  to  bring  light  into  the  dark  places  of 
genetic  psychology.^ 

The  point  is  well  taken.  If,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  theory  of  central  concomitant  sensations 
helps  us  to  a  stable  affective  psychology,  then  let 
us  welcome  it  gladly,  without  waiting  to  ask 
whether  its  foundation  is  in  psychology  or  in 
physiology,  and  whether  its  author  has  or  has 
not  adduced  at  the  outset  valid  arguments  in  its 
favour.  A  good  working  hypothesis  is  valuable 
for  its  own  sake,  and  the  facts  whose  discovery  it 
assures  soon  become  strong  enough  to  furnish 
the  required  corrective.  Stumpf,  now,  devotes 
seven  pages  —  one-seventh  of  his  whole  paper  — 
to  the  test  of  the  theory  from  this  point  of  view. 
Let  us  see  what  the  outcome  is. 

In  the  first  place,  Stumpf  points  out  that  the 
theory  accounts  for  the  various  analgesias,  for 


116  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

the  cases  of  anaesthesia  in  which  pain-sensation 
persists,  and  for  the  occurrence  of  *  unnoticeable ' 
sensations  of  pain  and  pleasure,  —  sensations 
which  are  above  the  limen  of  stimuhis  but  below 
the  limen  of  attention.^®  As  we  agree  that  pain, 
itch,  tickle,  etc.,  are  sensations,  we  have  no 
quarrel  with  him  on  their  behalf.  It  need  only 
be  said  that  his  theory  has,  here,  no  advantage 
of  any  kind  over  the  orthodox  affectional  theory. 
Secondly,  Stumpf  instances  the  fact  of  'indif- 
ferent '  sensations.  An  affectional  theory,  he  says, 
has,  by  a  sort  of  a  ^priori  necessity,  to  postulate 
the  presence  of  affective  process  in  conscious- 
ness, even  where  introspection  is  unable  to  dis- 
cover it,  —  witness  Lotze's  doctrine  of  the  "  All- 
gegenwart  der  Gefuhle."  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  process  is  an  accessory  sensation,  "so  liegt 
nicht  der  mindeste  Grund  vor,  warum  eine  solche 
Begleitung  vollig  allgemein  und  ausnahmslos  den 
Empfindungen  zukommen  mlisse";  while  we 
can  readily  understand  how  it  comes  about  that 
extensive  and  intensive  stimulation  of  any  sort 
brings  the  accessory  sensation  into  consciousness  .^^ 
This  argument,  however,  is  unconvincing.  An 
affectional  theory  is  a  theory  of  affective  facts ; 
and  the  fact  that  some  sensations  are  indifferent 
is  ordinarily  explained  by  reference  either  to 
habituation  or  to  insufficient  intensity  of  stimulus. 


APPLICATIONS  117 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  small  choice,  on  this 
topic,  between  the  opposing  views.  One  might 
argue,  against  Stumpf,  that  a  concomitant  sensa- 
tion which  is  rarely  if  ever  isolable  in  conscious- 
ness, which  can  hardly  be  separated  from  its 
companion,  whether  as  sensation  or  as  image, 
ought  a  priori  always  to  accompany  its  pair; 
and,  indeed,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this 
objection  is  stronger  than  that  which  Stumpf 
urges  from  the  other  side.  Lotze's  view  is  in- 
trospectively  grounded,  and  may,  perhaps,  have 
been  due  to  " individuelle  Organisation."^^ 

Thirdly,  Stumpf  declares  that  his  theory 
accords  better  than  its  rival  with  the  facts  of  the 
dependence  of  affective  tone  upon  the  quality 
of  sensation,  as  set  forth,  e.g.,  by  Ebbinghaus.^^ 
I  might  reply  that  this  dependence  is  itself  in 
dispute ;  Kiilpe,  e.g.,  denies  it.'^°  All  that  Stumpf 
could  then  assert  would  be  that  his  theory  accords 
with  a  particular  view  entertained  by  Ebbing- 
haus,  —  a  view,  be  it  remembered,  which  Ebbing- 
haus  himself  regards  as  compatible  with  an  affec- 
tional  theory.  If,  however,  this  is  unduly  to 
press  the  sense  of  the  term  'dependence,'  — 
though  Ebbinghaus  heads  his  section,  *  Die 
seelischen  Geflihlsursachen  "  !  ^^  —  and  if  Stumpf 
has  in  mind  simply  the  factual  connections  of 
sensation  and  affection,  then  I  do  not  see,  and 


118  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

Stumpf  makes  no  effort  to  show,  in  what  way  his 
theory  is  superior.  The  facts  are  "eine  weitge- 
hende  Konstanz,  .  .  .  aber  doch  wieder  Aus- 
nahmen  von  dieser  Regehnassigkeit."  To  say: 
'*die  Auffassung  der  Sinnesgefiihle  als  Mitemp- 
findungen  .  .  .  fiigt  sich  diesen  Bedingungen 
ohne  weiteres,"  as  if  there  were  something  in  the 
very  nature  of  concomitant  sensations  that  indi- 
cated a  rule  with  salient  exceptions,  is  of  little 
avail ;  we  must  know  in  detail  the  conditions 
of  the  rule  and  the  conditions  of  the  exceptions. 

The  argumentation  on  these  two  points  is  very 
much  'in  the  air.'  It  may  well  be  the  case  that 
Stumpf  has  thought  out  his  position  with  all 
necessary  fulness,  and  that  as  he  writes  a  crowd 
of  confirmatory  associations  press  in  upon  him. 
But  the  statements  actually  made  are  schematic 
to  a  degree.  I  have  tried,  working  on  the  hints 
which  Stumpf  has  earlier  given,  to  think  out  a 
physiological  mechanism  that  should  behave, 
naturally  and  normally,  as  the  substrate  of  the 
concomitant  sensations  is  required  to  behave : 
but  the  deeper  I  go,  the  farther  do  I  seem  to 
travel  from  anything  like  our  current  conception 
of  the  substrate  of  sensation. 

There  is  a  fourth  point.  Stumpf  thinks  that 
his  theory  brings  us  nearer  than  any  other  to 
an  understanding  of  the  vast  and  unsettled  prob- 


APPLICATIONS  119 

lems  of  affective  genesis,  of  the  individual  de- 
velopment and  generic  evolution  of  the  sense- 
feelings,  —  and  also  of  the  related  problem  of  the 
striking  diversity  of  affective  reaction  to  the  same 
stimulus. "^^  He  illustrates  this  thesis  by  reference 
to  the  senses  of  taste  ^^  and  hearing. ^^  As  the 
psychology  of  tone  is  Stumpf's  special  field,  and 
as  he  gives  more  space  to  hearing  than  to  taste, 
I  may  confine  myself  to  his  discussion  of  the  tonal 
feelings. 

We  have  at  our  disposal  a  mass  of  facts  from 
history,  from  individual  psychology,  and  from 
ethnography.  We  have  also  a  number  of  facts 
gained  from  psychological  experimentation  :  **the 
existence  and  the  peculiar  character  of  the  *  feel- 
ing of  purity'  with  consonant  intervals,  the  shift 
of  this  feeling  within  certain  limits  under  the 
influence  of  sesthetic  and  other  motives,  as  well 
as  its  dependence  upon  recently  formed  habits; 
the  great  secular  changes  as  regards  the  pleasant- 
ness of  consonances  at  large,  the  origin  and  de- 
velopment of  the  modern  feeling  of  harmony, 
the  possibility  of  its  temporary  annulment  by 
intensive  occupation  with  divergent  tone-struc- 
tures." ^^  Now,  Stumpf  says,  the  theory  of 
concomitant  sensation  gives  us  the  right  atti- 
tude to  all  these  facts.  For  brief  periods  of  time, 
the  same  stimuli  will  evoke  a  constant  affective 


120  GEFUHLSEMPFINDUNGEN 

reaction ;  but  in  long  periods  of  time  the  sense- 
feelings  are  exposed  to  transforming  influences, 
both  of  an  individual  and  of  a  generic  sort,  more 
especially  to  the  influence  of  habitual  direction 
of  attention,  of  disposition  of  judgment,  of  habits 
of  all  kinds.  Let  such  factors  operate  through 
generations,  and  we  may  have  inheritance,  con- 
nate peculiarities  of  feeling-effect.  These  pecu- 
liarities are  perhaps,  in  some  instances,  residua 
of  sense-feelings  which  originally  appeared  in 
connection  with  emotions;  and  Stumpf  here 
broaches  a  subject  of  fascinating  interest,  —  the 
possibility  of  expert  reconstruction  of  those 
emotions  themselves.  "  Die  Ausfuhrung  muss 
freilich  einer  anderen  Gelegenheit  vorbehalten 
bleiben."  '' 

Here  I  am  less  inclined  to  criticise  than  to  re- 
gret. We  are  given  a  skeleton,  an  outline  — 
less  than  that :  a  bare  suggestion  of  Stumpf 's 
doctrine  of  the  *Ton-  und  Musikgefiihle.' '^ 
Would  that  we  had  the  completed  work  !  Until 
that  appears,  it  is  hopeless  to  argue  under  this 
heading,  whether  for  the  affective  element  or  for 
the  concomitant  sensation. 

The  paper  ends  with  a  brief  comment  on  the 
inadequacy  of  the  teleological  principle  as  a 
principle  of  explanation.'^  On  this  matter  I 
not  only  agree  with  Stumpf,  but  I  should  even 


APPLICATIONS  121 

be  inclined  to  go  farther,  and  to  rule  the  teleo- 
logical  principle  out  of  affective  psychology 
altogether.  — 

Has,  then,  this  section  on  'applications'  shaken 
our  previous  conclusion  ?  My  own  feeling  is  that 
Stumpf's  presentation  would  have  been  stronger 
without  it.  These  brief  and  summary  statements 
read  like  the  formularies  of  a  faith;  their  dog- 
matism stands  in  marked  contrast  to  the  careful 
and  elaborate  argument  that  has  gone  before. 
On  the  evidence,  we  must  still  say  that  the 
theory  of  concomitant  sensation,  as  a  psycho- 
logical theory,  has  little  to  commend  it.  When 
the  evidence  is  all  in,  and  the  explanatory  power 
of  the  theory  has  been  tested  along  the  whole 
line  of  observed  fact,  then  I,  for  one,  shall  be 
ready  to  revise,  and  if  necessary  to  reverse,  this 
judgment.  May  the  day  come  quickly  that 
brings  us  the  long-delayed  volume  on  the  Tonge- 
filhle  ! 


IV 

THE  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 


LECTURE  IV 

THE  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF   FEELING  * 

A  LECTURER  who  had  expounded  Wundt's 
elementary  doctrine  of  feeling  in  the  year 
of  grace  1893  would  have  called  attention  to  two 
principal  points :  the  status  of  feeling  in  con- 
sciousness, and  the  number  and  nature  of  the 
affective  qualities.  Feeling,  Wundt  says  in  the 
fourth  edition  of  the  Physiologische  Psychologies 
is  a  third  attribute  of  sensation,  "eine  dritte 
Eigenschaft  der  Empfindung."  "Neben  In- 
tensitat  und  Qualitat  begegnet  uns  mehr  oder 
minder  ausgepragt  in  jeder  Empfindung  ein 
drittes  Element.  .  .  .  Wir  nennen  diesen  drit- 
ten  Bestandtheil  der  Empfindung  den  GefiXhlston 
oder  das  sinnliche  Gefilhl."  And  feeling  or 
affective  tone  ranges  between  qualitative  oppo- 
sites,  which  "wir  als  Lust-  und  Uiilustgefilhle 
bezeichnen."  Pleasantness  and  unpleasantness 
are  the  ultimate  simple  forms  of  sense-feeling, 
the  irreducible  qualities  of  the  pure  affective  tone 
which  is  immanent  in  the  simple  sensation.  At 
the  same  time,  the  terms  *  pleasantness '  and  *  un- 

*  This  Lecture  has  been  prmted  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Psychology,  April,  1908. 

125 


126  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

pleasantness'  are  not  adequate  to  describe  the 
affective  tone  of  any  and  every  sensation  that  we 
obtain  by  psychological  analysis.  The  qualities 
of  the  higher  senses,  sight  and  hearing,  play  an 
important  part  in  the  compound  ideas  which 
appeal  to  the  aesthetic  side  of  our  nature.  Prob- 
ably for  this  reason,  their  affective  colouring  is 
approximately,  anndhernd,  identical  with  that  of 
such  compound  ideas;  they  have  taken  on  a 
Stimmungscharakter,  "der  nicht  mehr  schlecht- 
hin  auf  Lust  und  Unlust  zurlickgeflihrt  werden 
kann,  sondern  in  andern,  in  gewissen  x\ffecten 
deutlicher  ausgepragten  Gegensatzen  einen  ada- 
quateren  Ausdruck  findet."  Tones,  e.g.,  may 
be  grave  or  cheerful,  colours  may  be  calming 
or  exciting.  The  passage  from  pure  affective 
tone,  pleasantness  or  unpleasantness,  to  these 
sesthetic,  emotional  shades  of  feeling  may  be 
traced  through  the  series  of  the  senses.  Touch 
and  the  common  sensations  show  pleasantness- 
unpleasantness  with  only  a  trace  of  "qualitative 
Farbung";  tastes  and  smells  are  predomi- 
nantly pleasant  or  unpleasant,  but  nevertheless  ad- 
mit of  **verschiedenartigere  Gefuhlsfarbungen." 
Tones  and  colours,  which  are  strongly  pleasant 
or  unpleasant  to  children  and  savages,  have  al- 
most lost  these  attributes  for  the  civilised  adult, 
—  though  even  for  us  the  seriousness  of  deep 


THE  THEORY  OF   1893  127 

tones  and  of  black  surfaces  leans  towards  un- 
pleasantness, and  the  excitement  of  high  tones 
and  of  white  towards  pleasantness,  —  and  have 
assumed  an  affective  colouring  whose  general 
affinity  to  pleasantness-unpleasantness  is,  in 
extreme  cases,  proved  only  by  its  movement 
between  qualitative  opposites/ 

That,  then,  was  Wundt's  doctrine,  taken  at  the 
purely  descriptive  level :  sensations  with  an 
immanent  attribute  of  pleasantness-unpleasant- 
ness, the  original  simplicity  of  which  appears 
clearly  enough  in  the  lower  sense-departments, 
but  in  the  higher  is  obscured  by  aesthetic  or  quasi- 
sesthetic  reference. 

Now  suppose  that,  as  the  novelists  say,  three 
years  have  elapsed,  and  that  the  same  lecturer 
is  discussing  the  same  subject  in  1896.  He  has 
in  his  hands  the  first  edition  of  Wundt's  Grund- 
riss  der  Psychologie,  And  there  he  reads  of 
*'zwei  Arten  psychischer  Elemente,  die  sich  als 
Producte  der  psychologischen  Analyse  ergeben, 
.  .  .  Empfindungselemente  oder  Empfindungen 
[und]  Gefiihlselemente  oder  einfache  Geflihle." 
The  constitutive  attributes  ("  unerlassliche  Be- 
st immungsstiicke")  of  sensation  are  quality  and 
intensity.  Affection,  too,  possesses  these  attri- 
butes. But  there  is  a  difference.  While  sensible 
qualities    are    limited    by    maximal    differences. 


128  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

affective  qualities  range  between  maximal  oppo- 
sites.  While  the  number  of  sensible  qualities  is 
fixed,  by  the  differentiation  of  the  sense-organ, 
the  number  of  affective  qualities  is  indefinitely 
large;  for  simple  feelings  are  the  subjective 
complements,  not  only  of  simple  sensations, 
but  also  of  compound  ideas  and  of  still  more 
complicated  ideational  processes.  And  while 
sensations  fall  into  a  number  of  separate  systems, 
there  is  but  one  affective  system ;  tone  and  colour, 
warmth  and  pressure,  are  disparate,  but  "alle 
einfachen  Geflihle  bilden  eine  einzige  zusammen- 
hangende  Mannigfaltigkeit,  insofern  es  kein 
Gefiihl  gibt,  von  dem  aus  man  nicht  durch 
Zwischenstufen  und  Indifferenzzonen  zu  irgend 
einem  andern  Gefiihle  gelangen  konnte." 

Do,  then,  all  these  many  affective  elements 
fall  within  *'dem  allgemeinen  Rahmen  einfacher 
Lust  und  Unlust"  ?  By  no  means  !  There  are 
three  HauptricJitungen  der  Gefiihle,  three  di- 
mensional categories,  "innerhalb  deren  unend- 
lich  viele  einfache  Qualitaten  vorkommen." 
These  are  pleasantness-unpleasantness,  excite- 
ment-inhibition or  excitement-tranquillisation, 
and  tension-relaxation.  As  a  rule,  Wundt  says, 
psychologists  have  paid  regard  only  to  pleasant- 
ness and  unpleasantness,  and  have  relegated  the 
other    two    affective    classes    to    the    emotions. 


THE  THEORY  OF   1896  129 

But  as  emotions  arise  from  the  combination  of 
feelings,  the  fundamental  types  of  emotion  must 
be  preformed,  vorgebildet,  in  the  affective  ele- 
ments.^ 

In  cases  like  this,  I  always  want  to  trace  the 
motive.  Like  the  lawyer  in  David  Copper- 
Jield,  I  assume  that  in  all  such  cases  there  is  a 
motive.  Wliat  was  it,  then,  that  led  Wundt  to 
his  change  of  opinion  ? 

If  my  reading  of  Wundt  is  correct,  the  changes 
that  he  has  made,  from  time  to  time,  in  his 
various  systematic  works  have  never  been  due, 
in  any  real  way,  to  external  causes,  but  have 
always  represented  the  climax  or  culmination  of 
a  stage  of  internal  development.  The  germs 
of  the  changes  are  invariably,  I  think,  to  be  found 
in  the  prior  Wundt,  and  the  changes  themselves 
are  but  the  full  and  self-conscious  maturity  of 
ideas  that  had  long  been  'incubated,'  had  long 
been  held  in  the  obscure  margin  of  consciousness. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible,  at  least  in  most 
cases,  to  point  with  a  fair  degree  of  probability 
to  the  external  cause  that  brought  these  obscure 
ideas  to  the  attentive  focus.  In  the  present  in- 
stance, that  external  cause  appears,  very  obvi- 
ously, in  the  publication  of  Klilpe's  Gru7idriss, 
Let  me  be  clear  on  this  matter,  even  if  I  am  repe- 


130  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

titious  !  I  believe  that  Wundt  would  have  for- 
mulated his  new  affective  theory  in  any  event ; 
the  theory  was  implicit  in  him  and  in  his  pre- 
vious writings.  If  Kiilpe  had  not  given  the 
touch  that  led  to  crystallisation,  some  one  else 
would,  sooner  or  later,  have  performed  the  same 
office.  In  fact,  however,  Kiilpe  undoubtedly  did 
furnish  the  external  stimulus,  —  so  that,  indeed, 
we  have  to  thank  him,  not  only  for  his  own 
Grundriss,  but  in  a  certain  special  and  limited 
sense  for  Wundt 's  as  well.^ 

Let  me  take  you,  now,  to  the  first  edition  of  the 
Physiologische  Psychologies  the  edition  of  1874. 
In  general,  the  exposition  is  very  like  the  exposi- 
tion of  1893.  But,  in  1893,  we  are  told  that  the 
affective  tone  of  sensations  of  the  higher  senses 
is  a  Stimmungscharakter,  a  colouring  that  they 
have  'taken  on'  in  virtue  of  their  constant  par- 
ticipation in  aesthetic  ideas.  In  1874,  the  ref- 
erence to  aesthetics  comes  at  the  end  of  the  dis- 
cussion; the  fact  that  sight  and  hearing  have 
freed  themselves  of  sense-pleasurableness  and 
sense-unpleasurableness  fits  them  to  serve  as 
elements  in  sesthetic  effect.  They  are  not  grave 
and  dignified  and  happy  and  cheerful  because 
they  have  been  aesthetically  employed,  but  their 
gravity  and  cheerfulness  are  what  enables  us  to 
employ  them  with  aesthetic  result.     **Lust  und 


THE  THEORY  OF   1874  131 

TJnlust,"  Wundt  concludes,  ''sind,  wie  es  scheint, 
nur  die  von  der  Intensitdt  der  Empfindung  her- 
riihrenden  Bestimmungen,  wahrend  an  die  Quali- 
tdten  Gegensatze  anderer  Art  gekniipft  sind, 
welche  zwar  zuweilen  in  eine  gewisse  Analogic 
mit  Lust  und  Unlust  sich  bringen  lassen,  an 
sich  aber  doch  von  diesen  letzteren  nicht  beriihrt 
werden."  Here  is  the  doctrine  of  the  plurality 
of  affective  dimensions  plainer  and  more  definite 
than  it  was  twenty  years  later ;  here  is,  evidently 
enough,  the  germ  of  the  doctrine  of  1896.* 

Once  more :  the  chapter  from  which  I  have 
been  quoting  is  entitled,  in  1893,  *'Gefuhlston 
der  Empfindung,"  —  in  1874,  "Sinnliche  Ge- 
flihle."  Is  not  that  significant  also  ?  Affection, 
in  1874,  is  not  an  attribute  of  sensation;  it  ap- 
pears in  that  role  for  the  first  time  in  1880. 
Affection,  in  1874,  is  a  relation,  the  relation 
which  sensation  sustains  to  consciousness  at 
large.  **Als  ein  nach  Qualitat  und  Intensitat 
bestimmter  Zustand  ist  die  Empfindung  nur  im 
Bewusstsein  gegeben ;  in  Wirklichkeit  existirt  sie 
daher  auch  immer  nur  in  ihrer  Beziehung  zu 
demselben.  Diese  Beziehung  nennen  wir  das 
sinnliche  Gefiihl."  ^ 

Clearly,  then,  the  whole  of  the  new  affective 
theory  is  implicit  in  the  original  edition  of 
Wundt's    great    work.     So    far   from    suddenly 


132  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 


GROSSE    KLANGSTARKE 

KJange  mit  tiefen  Obertunen.      Klange  mit  tiefen  und      Klange  mit  hohen  ObertOnen. 
hohen  Obertonen. 


Tiefe  Tone. 


Hohe  Tone. 


Klange  mit  tiefen  Obertonen. 


Klange  mit  tiefen  und 
hoiien  Obertonen. 


Klange  mit  hohen  Obertonen. 


GERINGE   KLANGSTARKE 

Fig.  3.  Wundt's  Schema  of  the  'System  der  Klanggefiihle' :  Physi- 
ologische  Psychologie,  1874,  446.  "Jedem  dieser  Ton-  und  Kianggegen- 
siitze  entsprechen  Contraste  des  Gefiihls,  die  alhnahg  durch  vermit- 
telnde  Z^dschenstufen  einem  Indifferenzpunkt  sich  niihem,  durch 
welchen  sie  in  einander  iibergehen.  Den  tiefen  Tonen  und  Klangfarben 
zur  hnken  Seite  entsprechen  die  ernsten,  den  hohen  zur  rechten  die 
heiteren  Stimmungen,  bei  grosserer  Klangstarke  sind  alle  Stimmungen 
mit  einem  gehobenen,  energischen,  bei  geringerer  Klangstarke  mit 
einem  gedampften,  sanften  Gefiihlston  verbunden.  Da  zwischen  den 
hier  herausgegriffenen  Strahlen  alle  moghchen  L^ebergange  sich  denken 
lassen,  so  kann  man  sich  vorstellen,  alle  durch  die  Klangfarbe  bestimmten 
Gefiihlstone  seien  in  einer  Ebene  angeordnet,  deren  eine  Dimension,  dem 
Continuum  der  einfachen  Tone  entsprechend,  die  Contraste  von  Ernst 
imd  Heiterkeit  mit  ihren  Uebergangsstufen  cnthalte,  wiihrend  die  zweite, 
welche  die  Starke  der  Theiltone  abmisst,  die  Gegensatze  des  Energischen 
und  Sanften  vermittelt."  — Cf.  ihid.,  ii.,  1902,  327  f. 


THE  THREE  DIMENSIONS  133 

reversing  his  attitude  to  affective  processes,  he 
has,  in  reality,  returned  to  his  first  systematic 
position.  In  other  words,  the  problem  with 
regard  to  Wundt  is  not  so  much  that  he  now 
makes  affection  an  independent  element  with  a 
plurality  of  dimensions  and  qualities,  as  rather 
that  he  ever  did  anything  else.  This  problem, 
too,  can  be  solved ;  but  it  is  foreign  to  our  pres- 
ent consideration. 

We  are  to  examine,  in  this  Lecture,  the  theory 
which  I  briefly  outlined  a  moment  ago  on  the 
basis  of  the  Grundriss  of  1896.  The  theory  has 
been  widely  and  variously  discussed,  and  I  can- 
not attempt  to  cover  the  whole  of  the  relevant 
'literature.'  I  shall  refer,  for  the  most  part,  to 
the  earliest  statements  of  it,  in  the  Grundriss 
of  1896  and  the  Vorlesungen  of  1897,  and  to  the 
latest  systematic  statement  in  the  Physiologische 
Psychologie  of  1902. 

First  of  all,  then,  how  does  AVundt  arrive  at 
his  three  affective  dimensions  ?  How  does  he 
prove  that  there  are  three,  and  that  these  three 
are  pleasantness-unpleasantness,  excitement-in- 
hibition, and  tension-relaxation  ?  Well !  his 
main  reliance  is  on  his  own  introspection. 
Wundt  is  a  man  of  keen  sensibility.  He  writes 
of  feeling  con  amore ;    he   is  fond   of   quoting 


134  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 


indigobL^ 


Fig.  4.  Wundt's  Schema  of  the  'System  der  Farbengefiihle'  :  Physi- 
ologische  Psychologic,  1874,  448.  The  affective  opposition,  "der  einer- 
seits  im  Gelb,  anders^its  im  Blau  am  starksten  ausgepragt  zu  sein  scheint, 
.  .  .  ist  der  der  Lebhaftigkeit  vmd  der  Ruhe  .  .  .  Zwischen  dem  Gelb 
und  dem.  Blau  gibt  es  aber  zwei  Uebergiinge  :  der  eine  durch  das  Griin, 
der  andere  durch  die  rothlichen  Farbentone.  ...  In  dem  Roth  und 
den  ihm  verwandten  Farben  ist  die  Bewegung  des  Gelb  und  die  Ruhe 
des  Blau  zu  einem  zwischen  Bewegung  und  Ruhe  hin-  und  herwogenden 
Zustand  der  Unruhe  geworden.  Diese  Vermittlung  durch  den  Zwiespalt 
ist  am  deuthchsten  in  den  blaurothen  Farbentonen,  wie  im  Violett,  rep- 
rasentirt.  Das  Griin  dagegen  driiekt  ein  wirkhches  Gleichgewicht  aus. 
Im  Vergleich  mit  dem  erstarrenden  Blau  und  dem  erregenden  Gelb 
verbreitet  es  ein  befriedigendes  Ruhegefiihl."  These  two  modes  of  tran- 
sition make  the  series  of  simple  colour-feelings  a  closed  curve,  analogous 
to  the  'colour  triangle.'  "Mit  Riick.sicht  auf  ihre  Bedeutung  als  Ueber- 
gangsstimmungen  %\'ird  aber  hierbei  dem  Griin  angemessener  das  Violett 
als  das  Purpur  gegeniiberzustellen  sein,  und  es  werden  dem  entsprechend 
Roth  vmd  Indigoblau,  Gelb  und  Blau  einander  gegeniiber  zu  liegen  kom- 
men.  .  .  .  Denken  wir  uns  die  den  verminderten  Sattigungsgraden  der 
Farben  bis  zum  Weiss  entsprechenden  Gefiihle  ahnhch  angeordnet,  so 
bilden  sie  alle  zusammen  die  von  der  Farbencurve  umschlossene  Ebene, 
in  welcher  der  Punkt  des  Weiss  die  indifferente  Stimmung  bezeichnet, 
wne  sie  die  einfache,  weder  durch  besondere  Starke  oder  Schwache  des 
Lichts  noch  durch  einen  Farbenton  modificirte  Lichtempfindung  hervor- 
bringt.  Rings  herum  liegen  die  matteren  und  darum  auch  durch 
kiirzere  Uebergange  vermittelten  Gefiihlstone  der  weissUchen  Farben." 
"Fiir  jede  Farbe  gibt  es  also  drei  Uebergange  der  Stimmung  zu  einer 
Farbe  von  entgegengesetztem  Gefiihlston  :  der  harmonische  durch  das 
ruhige  Griin,  der  contrastirende  durch  das  zwiespaltige  Violett  und  der 
indifferente  durch  das  gleichgiiltige  Weiss."  The  complete  schema  of 
\'isual  sensations  is,  however,  tridimensional ;  the  vertical  axis  shows 
the  colourless  sensations  aroused  by  the  "Intensitatsgrade  des  Lichts." 
These  have  their  own  feelings.  "Zwischen  den  Gegensatzen  der  Helhg- 
keit,  dem  ernsten  Dunkel  und  dem  heiteren  Lichte,  existirt  nur  der  eine 
Uebergang  durch  das  indifferente  Weiss  von  mittlerer  Helligkeit.  In- 
dem  die  Lichtstiirke  der  Farben  zu-  oder  abnehmen  kann,  konnen  sie 
auch  an  diesen  Gefvihlstonen  der  Helligkeit  Theil  nehmen."  —  Cf.  ibid., 
ii.,  1902.  329  f. 


FEELING  AND  EMOTION  135 

Goethe's  Farhenlehre;  feeling  has  played  a 
larger  and  larger  part  in  his  psychological  sys- 
tem as  time  went  on;  as  early  as  1874  he  had 
systematised,  thrown  into  diagrammatic  form, 
his  affective  reactions  to  colours  and  tones.  So 
the  new  theory  appears  in  the  Grundriss  without 
preface  or  apology, — ''wird  einfach  als  Tat- 
sache  eingefiihrt,"  Orth  plaintively  remarks,®  — 
takes  its  place  in  the  exposition  with  all  the 
assurance  of  established  fact.  Remembering 
its  genesis,  its  deep-rooted  and  slow  growth  in 
Wundt's  mind,  we  need  not  be  greatly  surprised. 
Wundt  had  said  in  1874,  ''Gelb  .  .  .  regt  an, 
blau  stimmt  herab  " ;  and  had  emphasised 
*'das  eigenthiimliche  Gefuhl  des  Aufmerkens" 
which  appears  "im  Zustande  des  Besinnens 
oder  der  Spannung."  ^  No  doubt  it  seemed 
obvious  to  him  in  1896  that  the  introspective 
evidence,  though  not  expressed,  would  be  un- 
derstood, —  if  indeed  the  thought  of  expression 
ever  occurred  to  him.  Now,  after  several  years 
of  criticism,  he  is  more  explicit;  the  Physiolo- 
gische  Psychologie  introduces  the  theory  by  way 
of  definite  introspective  analysis.^ 

Even  in  the  Grundriss,  however,  Wundt  is  not 
simply  dogmatic.  He  explains  (a)  that  a  triple 
classification  of  the  affective  elements  is  required 


136  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

for  the  distinction  of  the  fundamental  types  of 
emotion.  Later  on,  it  is  true,  he  declares  that 
a  psychological  classification  of  the  emotions 
'*nur  auf  die  Qualitat  des  Gefiihlsinhaltes 
gegriindet  werden  kann."  The  argument  has 
a  circular  look :  affections  are  classified  by 
reference  to  emotion,  emotions  by  reference  to 
affection.  I  think,  however,  that  it  is  formally 
sound.  Theoretically,  emotions  may  be  classi- 
fied by  quality,  by  intensity,  and  by  temporal 
course.  In  practice,  intensity  and  temporal 
course  fail  to  furnish  reliable  criteria :  hence 
emotions  must  be  classified  by  quality.  Quali- 
tative analysis  then  reveals  certain  fundamental 
types  of  emotion,  which  must,  of  course,  be  pre- 
formed in  the  affective  qualities.  Emotive  classi- 
fication thus  points  us  back  to  a  particular 
classification  of  affections,  while  affective  classi- 
fication, to  be  adequate,  must  necessarily  point 
forward  to  emotion.  Formally,  this  reasoning 
is  rather  a  matter  of  what  Fechner  would  call 
the  'solidarity'  of  a  system  than  an  instance  of 
merely  circular  argumentation.^  Whether  it  is 
materially  sound  is  another  question,  —  a  ques- 
tion which  Stumpf,  e.g.^  would  answer  with  an 
emphatic  negative.^ ^ 

Wundt  also  brings  evidence  of  an  objective 
sort,  the  evidence  (h)  derived  from  the  method 


THE    METHOD    OF    EXPRESSION         137 

of  expression.  He  lays  but  slight  stress  on  pulse- 
correlation  in  the  Grundriss :  ''es  ist  unzulassig, 
die  Ausdrucks-  der  Eindrucksmethode  in  Bezug 
auf  ihren  psychologischen  Werth  gleichzuord- 
nen."  ^^  In  the  Vorlesungen,  too,  the  pulse- 
records  are  introduced  to  prove  the  physiological 
relationship  of  the  'lower'  to  the  'higher'  feel- 
ings, some  time  before  we  reach  the  distinction 
of  the  three  affective  dimensions/^  It  is  not 
until  1900,  in  the  Bemerkungen  zur  Theorie  der 
Gefilhle,  that  the  changes  in  innervation  of  heart, 
vessels,  and  respiratory  mechanism  —  "ein  tiber- 
aus  feines  Reagens  auf  die  leisesten  Aender- 
ungen  der  Starke  wie  Richtung  der  Gefuhle"^^ 
—  are  given  anything  like  an  independent  place 
in  Wundt's  argument.  Do  not  fear,  now,  that 
I  shall  plunge  you  into  the  technical  intricacies 
of  the  expressive  method,  and  that  the  remainder 
of  the  hour  will  be  filled  with  sphygmograph  and 
plethysmograph,  pneumograph  and  dynamo- 
graph  !  Even  if  that  method  came  into  our 
discussion,  I  could  pass  it  over  with  the  re- 
minder that,  not  so  long  ago,  I  gave  a  critical 
review  of  it  from  this  platform.^*  But  it  does 
not  come  into  our  discussion.  Grant  every- 
thing that  the  most  ardent  disciples  of  the 
method  demand,  and  then  ask  yourselves : 
Where  is  the  evidence,  in  these  correlations,  that 


138  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

we  are  dealing  with  elementary  mental  pro- 
cesses ?  What  have  pulse-curves  to  say  to  the 
question  of  the  irreducibility,  the  ultimateness 
in  consciousness,  of  the  experiences  of  excite- 
ment-inhibition, tension-relaxation  ?  Wundt  him- 
self is  careful,  in  psychological  connection,  to 
differentiate  **specifisclie  Beschaffenheit "  and 
**elementare  Natur."  ^^  How  can  pulse  and 
breathing  be  relied  upon  to  make  the  same  dis- 
tinction ?  ^® 

Let  us,  then,  dismiss  the  expressive  method, 
and  come  back  to  the  Grundriss.  Had  Wundt 
stopped  short  at  the  point  which  we  have  now 
reached ;  had  he  stated  his  theory,  shown  its 
usefulness  in  systematic  regard  for  the  classifica- 
tion of  emotions,  and  indicated  the  correlated 
differences  in  the  pulse-tracings :  his  position 
would,  I  think,  have  been  stronger  than  it  actu- 
ally is.  But  he  attempts,  further,  (c)  to  connect 
the  three  dimensions  of  affection  with  the  three 
relations  in  which  a  given  feeling  may  stand  to 
the  temporal  course  of  mental  processes  at  large. 
Pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  denote  a  de- 
terminate modification  of  our  present  mental 
state;  excitement  and  inhibition  exert  a  de- 
terminate influence  upon  the  next  succeeding 
state ;  and  tension  and  relaxation  are  qualita- 
tively determined  by  the  preceding  state.  **Diese 


TIME-RELATIONS  OF  FEELING         139 

Bedingungen  machen  es  zugleich  wahrschein- 
lich,  dass  andere  Hauptrichtungen  der  Gefiihle 
nicht  exist iren."  ^^  And  yet  —  quality  is  the 
criterion  for  the  classification  of  emotions,  and 
the  classification  of  the  emotions  requires  three 
ultimate  affective  dimensions  !  Here,  surely,  we 
have  the  fallacy  of  too  many  proofs  !  Wundt, 
it  is  true,  offers  in  the  Bemerhungen  a  defence 
of  his  dual  argument.  **Es  handelt  sich  hier 
um  Momente,  die  selbst  wieder  mit  einander 
zusammenhangen : "  *' [es]  kommt  hier  uberall 
nicht  ein  Verhaltniss  von  Ursachen  und  Wirk- 
ungen,  sondern  lediglich  ein  solches  von  Bezie- 
hungen  und  Bedingungen  in  Frage,  die  sich 
wenigstens  vorlaufig  durch  eine  vollstandige 
Analyse  aus  der  Gesammtheit  der  complexen 
Bedingungen  nicht  isoliren  lassen."  ^^  If  I  un- 
derstand these  passages  aright,  Wundt's  meaning 
is  as  follows :  *  Consciousness  is  always  exceed- 
ingly complex,  so  that  the  affective  processes  are 
given  in  complex  relations  and  appear  as  vari- 
ously conditioned.  Causal  analysis  is,  at  pres- 
ent, beyond  our  powers.  We  can,  however, 
trace  certain  relations  and  follow  up  certain 
part-conditions ;  and  our  results,  different  or 
even  incompatible  as  they  may  look,  are  really 
abstractions  from  —  represent  moments  of  —  a 
single   system   of   causal   interrelations.     Hence 


140  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

they  may  safely  be  set  down  side  by  side.'  In 
the  abstract,  all  this  may  be  granted.  Still,  how- 
ever, I  do  not  see,  in  the  concrete,  how  the  three 
affective  dimensions  can  be  guaranteed  both  by 
temporal  relation  to  the  course  of  consciousness 
and  by  qualitative  differences  in  emotion.  The 
latter  are  enough,  in  themselves :  the  former  is, 
at  the  best,  a  matter  of  reflection,  of  analysis 
above  the  elementary  level ;  and  its  obvious 
superfluity  tends  to  cast  doubt  upon  the  results 
of  qualitative  analysis  proper,  with  w^hich  it  is 
brought  into  agreement.  For  the  rest,  it  is 
significant  that,  in  his  later  writings,  Wundt  has 
dropped  this  principle  of  temporal  relation  as  a 
means  of  affective  classification. 

In  the  Voiiesungen  of  1897  a  new  principle 
makes  its  appearance.  After  distinguishing  the 
three  dimensions  of  pleasantness-unpleasant- 
ness, excitement-tranquillisation,  tension-relaxa- 
tion, Wundt  says :  "dass  es  noch  andere  Haupt- 
richtungen  ausser  diesen  gebe,  scheint  mir  nach 
der  subjectiven  Beobachtung  nicht  wahrschein- 
lich.  Audi  diirften  die  genannten  den  allge- 
meinsten  Bedingungen  entsprechen,  unter  denen 
Gefuhle  liberhaupt  entstehen."  ^^  The  dimen- 
sions are  guaranteed  first  by  introspection,  and 
secondly  {d)  by  the  threefold  character  of 
affective  conditions.     The  conditions  are  found 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  FEELING         141 

in  the  "  Empfindungs-  und  Vorstellungsele- 
mente,  an  die  [die  Geflihle]  gebunden  sind."  ^^ 
Pleasantness-unpleasantness  represent  a  quality- 
dimension;  excitement -tranquillisation,  an  in- 
tensity-dimension; tension-relaxation,  a  time- 
dimension.  *'Die  Bedeutung  von  Lust  und 
Unlust  als  *  Qualitatsrichtungen '  liegt  darin,  dkss 
vorzugsweise  in  ihnen  die  Wirkungen  der  quali- 
tativen  Eigenschaften  des  gesammten  Bewusst- 
seinsinhalts  zum  Ausdruck  kommen":  and 
similarly  with  the  other  two  dimensions. ^^  In- 
trinsically, of  course,  every  affection  is  a  quality, 
qualitatively  different  from  every  other.  But 
the  affective  qualities  of  the  three  dimensions 
reflect,  express,  are  determined  by  the  quality, 
intensity,  and  temporal  properties  of  sensations 
and  ideas. 

I  am  not  here  concerned  with  the  correctness 
or  incorrectness  of  Wundt's  correlation.  He  has 
himself  changed  it,  in  the  Physiologische  Psij- 
chologie  of  1902,  where  pleasantness-unpleasant- 
ness represents  an  intensive,  and  excitement- 
tranquillisation  a  qualitative  dimension, ^^ — just 
the  reverse  of  what  was  said  in  1897.  I  am  con- 
cerned with  the  correlation  as  a  principle  of 
classification.  There  are,  Wundt  declares,  three 
general  conditions  of  the  arousal  of  feeling :  the 
quality,  the  intensity,  and  the  temporal  relations 


142  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

of  conscious  contents.  And  the  threefold  char- 
acter of  the  conditions  furnishes,  along  with 
introspection,  evidence  that  there  are  but 
three  dimensions  of  affection.  What,  then,  has 
become  of  the  spatial  relations  of  conscious 
contents.^  The  chapter-headings  of  the  Physi- 
ologische  Psychologie  tell  us  that  Sinnes- 
vorstellungen  are  of  three  kinds :  intensive, 
spatial,  temporal.  Spatial  and  temporal  ideas 
may  be  grouped  together  as  extensive ;  intensive 
ideas  differ  from  sensations  by  the  composite 
nature  of  their  intensity  and  quality.^^  These 
intensive  ideas  are  therefore  responsible  for  two 
affective  dimensions,  the  intensive  and  qualita- 
tive; the  temporal  ideas  are  responsible  for  a 
third  dimension,  the  temporal ;  only  the  spatial 
ideas  are  excused  from  affective  duty.  I  argue, 
then,  in  this  way.  In  so  far  as  affective  classifi- 
cation is  dependent  upon  the  various  forms  of 
idea,  in  so  far  Wundt's  classification  is  inade- 
quate ;  for  the  spatial  form  of  idea  is  as  impor- 
tant, in  the  mental  life,  as  the  intensive  or  the 
temporal.^*  And  if  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
spatial  dimension  of  affective  qualities,  then  we 
may  justly  doubt  whether  the  principle  of  classi- 
fication is  sound,  and  whether  any  conclusion  as 
to  the  number  of  affective  dimensions  may  be 
deduced  from  it.     Remember,  I  am  not  arguing 


THE  CONDITIONS   OF   FEELING         143 

on  a  matter  of  fact;  I  am  considering  the  ap- 
plication of  a  principle. 

Wundt  replies,  in  the  Bemerkungen,  that  he 
has  left  spatial  ideas  out  of  account  for  two  rea- 
sons :  first,  "  weil  sich  mir  Beziehungen  derselben 
zu  bestimmten  Geflihlsrichtungen  weder  in  der 
unmittelbaren  subjectiven  Beobachtung  noch 
bei  der  Analyse  der  Ausdrucksbewegungen  dar- 
boten;"  and  secondly,  "weil  es  mir  scheint, 
dass  man  sehr  wohl  bei  jedem  Affect  qualitative, 
intensive  und  zeitliche  Eigenschaften  unter- 
scheiden  kann,  wahrend  ich  mit  dem  Ausdruck, 
der  Zorn  oder  die  Freude  habe  irgend  eine 
raumliche  Ausdehnung,  keinen  rechten  Sinn  zu 
verbinden  weiss."  ^^  The  first  of  these  arguments 
misses  its  mark  for  the  reason  that,  in  the 
Vorlesungen,  the  distinction  of  three  general 
conditions  of  feeling,  their  connection  with  three 
forms  of  idea,  is  offered  as  additional  evidence, 
over  and  above  *  subjective  Beobachtung,'  for 
the  finality  of  Wundt's  classification.  '' Auch 
dlirften  die  genannten  Hauptrichtungen  den 
allgemeinsten  Bedingungen  entsprechen,  unter 
denen  Gefiihle  tiberhaupt  entstehen."  I  object 
to  Wundt  that  the  one  of  his  two  criteria  is  in- 
valid, and  he  rejoins  that  the  other  is  valid  ! 
The  second  argument  goes  equally  wide.  I  did 
not    assert    that    an    emotion    possesses    spatial 


144  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

attributes,  that  an  affection  may  be  'extended/ 
but  that  certain  ideas  possess  spatial  attributes 
and  relations,  —  and  that,  if  we  are  classifying 
affections  by  reference  to  the  forms  of  ideas,  then 
these  spatial  characteristics  must  be  taken  into 
account,  as  well  as  the  intensive,  qualitative,  and 
temporal.  I  use  the  phrase  'spatial  dimension 
of  affective  qualities '  precisely  as  Wundt  uses  the 
phrase  'temporal  dimension,' — to  signify  affec- 
tive qualities  that  are  dependent  upon  ideational 
extension.  I  acquitted  Wundt,  just  now,  of  the 
charge  of  circularity;  I  am  afraid  that  I  must 
here  charge  him  with  the  logical  error  which  is 
know^n  in  the  vernacular  as  'missing  the  point.' 
In  sum,  therefore,  Wundt 's  three  affective 
dimensions  are  supported,  primarily,  by  his  own 
introspection,  while  he  has  appealed,  further, 
to  the  necessities  of  emotive  classification ;  to 
the  results  of  the  method  of  expression;  to  the 
temporal  relations  of  the  affective  processes; 
and  to  their  general  conditions  in  consciousness. 
The  first  use  of  these  arguments  I  take  to  be 
sound,  both  formally  and  materially,  though  I 
do  not  arrive  by  it  at  the  conclusion  which  Wundt 
has  reached.  The  second  must  be  pronounced 
irrelevant ;  the  third  has  been  given  up  by  Wundt 
himself ;  the  fourth  we  have  seen  to  be  logically 
defective  and  psychologically  indefensible. 


TERMINOLOGY  145 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  theory  on  the 
basis  that  remains  for  it :  introspection  of  the 
simple  sense-feelings  and  qualitative  analysis  of 
the  emotions.  I  find  a  difficulty,  at  the  outset, 
in  Wundt's  terminology.  You  may  have  been 
surprised  that,  when  I  have  had  occasion  to 
mention  Wundt's  category  of  'excitement,'  I 
have  paired  it  with  'inhibition'  or  'tranquillisa- 
tion,'  rather  than  with  the  more  usual  term 
'depression.'  I  have,  throughout,  been  quoting 
Wundt's  own  words ;  but  it  is  true  that,  in  the 
Grundriss,  'depressing'  is  given  as  an  alterna- 
tive to  'tranquillising,'  and  that  in  the  Physi- 
ologische  Psychologie  'Depression'  is  suggested 
for  the  higher  deorrees  of  '  Beruhiorunor.'  ^e  Wundt 
can,  of  course,  do  no  more  than  take  language 
as  he  finds  it.  But  I  think  that  his  actual  choice 
of  words  bears  witness  to  a  conflict,  in  his 
thought,  between  two  purposes :  the  purpose 
of  transcribing  his  introspections,  and  the  pur- 
pose of  maintaining  the  typical  affective  move- 
ment betw^een  opposites.  Pleasantness  and  un- 
pleasantness. Lust  and  Unlust,  are  opposite  in 
name,  as  well  as  in  nature.  What  of  Spannufig 
and  Lbsung  ?  In  English, '  relaxation '  —  which, 
I  suppose,  is  the  nearest  equivalent  of  Losung  — 
suggests  rather  the  remitting  or  resolving  of 
tension  than  its  qualitative  opposite :   this  latter 


146  TRIDIMEXSIOXAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

would  be  better  expressed  by  'relief.'  Possibly 
Losung  has  for  Wundt  an  implication  of  positive 
relief,  of  Erleichterung,  —  though  it  has  not  for 
me,  nor  for  German  friends  of  whom  I  have 
made  inquiry.  Wundt  speaks  also  of  the 
Befriedigung,  the  fulfilment,  of  expectation ;  ^^ 
but  that  term  brings  us  perilously  near  to  Be- 
ruhigung.  The  chief  difficulty,  however,  arises 
in  connection  with  the  remaining  dimension. 
What  is  the  opposite  of  Erregung?  Sometimes 
Wundt  says  Hemmwig,  sometimes  he  says 
Beruhigung,  sometimes  Dejyression.  The  an- 
tithesis Erregung- HemmuJig  comes  from  nerve- 
physiology  ;  ^^  Erregung-Depi'essioii  comes,  evi- 
dently, from  observation  of  the  emotions,  normal 
and  pathological ;  Erregung-BeruJiigung  appears 
to  be  the  analogue  of  Spannung -Losung  and  to 
convey  the  same  suggestion.  But  what  is,  in 
introspection,  the  felt  opposite  of  Erregung  ?  I 
cannot  myself  identify  the  feelings  of  Hemmimg, 
Depression,  Beruhigung ;  I  cannot  feel  them  as 
degrees  of  the  same  thing,  as  lying  in  the  same 
affective  dimension  ;  I  cannot  always  distinguish 
between  Beruhigung  and  Losung.  Erregung^ 
'excitement,'  seems  to  me  to  feel  very  differently 
in  different  contexts,  to  be  an  equivocal  term. 
It  is  easy  to  say  that  such  considerations  are  mere 
'  Wortklauberei ' :  but  I  am  trying  to  express  a 
real  introspective  difficulty. 


VARIANTS   OF  THE  THEORY  117 

If,  then,  I  am  to  judge  others  by  myself,  this 
uncertainty  in  the  meaning  of  terms  may  be  at 
least  a  partial  reason  for  the  fact  that  Wunclt's 
classification,  despite  its  claim  to  finality,  does 
not  always  command  the  assent  even  of  those 
who  agree  with  its  spirit  and  intention.  Gure- 
witsch,  e.g.,  in  his  Theorie  der  sittlichen  Gefilhle, 
makes  a  fourth  affective  category  for  Streben- 
Widerstreben.^^  ^ogi,  again,  ranges  feelings  of 
activity  and  passivity  alongside  of  pleasantness- 
unpleasantness,  arousal-depression,  tension-re- 
laxation.^^ Wundt  identifies  Strebwigsgefuhl 
with  Thdtigkeitsgefuhl,  which  he  regards  as  a 
total  feeling,  compounded  of  strain  and  excite- 
ment.^^ Royce,  on  the  other  hand,  is  disposed 
to  think  that  two  dimensions  —  pleasantness- 
unpleasantness  and  restlessness-quiescence  —  are 
adequate  to  the  facts  of  the  affective  life.^^  I 
do  not  at  all  mean  that  these  differences  of 
opinion  are  fatal  to  the  theory.  But  they  testify 
—  do  they  not  ?  —  to  a  lack  of  precise  formula- 
tion. Royce  throws  two  of  Wundt 's  dimensions 
into  one;  Vogt  and  Gurewitsch  split  the  same 
two  into  three. 

The  single  dimension  about  which  Wundt 
himself  seems,  from  the  first,  to  have  felt  no 
doubt  is  that  of  Spanming-Losung.  The  other 
two  dimensions,  as  I  pointed  out  just  now,  have 


148  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

actually  exchanged  places  in  his  system.  x\nd 
the  same  uncertainty  characterises  certain  of 
his  observations  in  detail.  Let  me  give  you  an 
instance.  In  the  Bemerkungen  of  1900,  Wundt 
writes:  "ich  wusste  .  .  .,  wenn  ich  vor  die 
Walil  gestellt  ware,  irgend  einen  dieser  Ein- 
driicke  dem  andern  vorzuziehen,  absolut  niclit 
zu  sagen,  ob  mir  das  rein  spektrale  Blau  oder 
das  Roth  .  .  .  angenehmer  sei."  This  does 
not  mean  that  the  two  colours  would  be  equally 
pleasant.  *'Ich  wtirde  eben  einem  solchen  Ver- 
langen  immer  nur  die  iVussage  gegenliberstellen 
konnen,  dass  diese  Eindriicke  an  sich  mit  Lust 
und  Unlust  nichts  zu  thun  haben."  ^^  The 
passage  is  a  little  startling,  when  one  remembers 
that  work  had  already  been  done  upon  colours 
—  and  colours  that  were  not  spectral  colours  — 
by  the  method  of  impression !  ^*  Two  years 
later,  now,  we  have  the  following:  "wenn  ich 
zuerst  ein  spektralreincs  leuchtendes  Roth  und 
dann  ein  ebensolches  Blau  im  Dunkelraum 
betrachte,  so  kann  ich  nicht  umliin,  beide  als 
im  hohen  Grad  erfreuende,  also  lusterregende 
Eindriicke  zu  charakterisiren."  ^  True,  the  sen- 
tence is  concessive;  the  next  begins  with  a 
'gleichwohl';  but  it  is,  nevertheless,  in  flat  con- 
tradiction to  the  former  quotation.  If  two  im- 
pressions are  highly  pleasant,  they  can  be  com- 


TPIE  THREE  DIMENSIONS  149 

pared  as  regards  pleasantness,  and  a  judgment 
of  greater,  less,  or  equal  can  be  passed  upon 
them.  Similarly  conflicting  statements  are  made 
concerning  high  and  low  tones. ^^  I  readily 
acknowledge,  again,  that  these  minor  incon- 
sistencies are  in  no  sense  fatal  to  the  theory; 
indeed,  Wundt  has  so  often  emphasised  the  im- 
portance for  feeling  of  the  "ganze  Disposition 
des  Bewusstseins "  ^^  that  I  feel  reluctant,  as  it 
were  a  morsel  ashamed,  to  dwell  upon  them. 
Still,  they  are  there  !  And  it  is  not  reassuring  to 
find  that  the  dimension  Spannung-Losung  owes 
its  exceptional  position,  the  stability  of  which  I 
spoke  above,  to  its  systematic  connection  with 
the  doctrine  of  apperception.  It  must  have 
occurred  to  many  of  you,  when,  earlier  in  the 
Lecture,  I  was  arguing  the  claims  of  space  as  a 
condition  of  feeling  in  consciousness,  to  ask : 
What,  then,  after  all,  are  the  claims  of  time  ? 
Since,  in  the  psychology  of  sensation,  duration 
and  extension  are,  both  alike,  to  a  very  large 
extent  equivalent  to,  interchangeable  with,  in- 
tensity, why  should  they  not  be  bracketed  with 
intensity  as  the  conditions  of  one  and  the  same 
affective  dimension  ?  We  should  then  have 
something  like  Royce's  classification :  pleasant- 
ness-unpleasantness, conditioned  upon  all  the 
'qualitative'    attributes    of    sensation,    and    ex- 


150  TRIDIMENSIOXAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

citement-quiescence,  conditioned  upon  all  the 
*  intensive.'  Now  Wundt  recognises  the  equiva- 
lence, under  certain  circumstances,  of  intensity 
and  duration.  ''Insbesondere  kann  die  Lust- 
Unlustcomponente  [bei  langerer  Einwirkung  auf 
das  Bewusstsein]  ganz  dieselben  Veranderungen 
erfahren,  die  audi  die  Steigerung  der  Intensi- 
tat  mit  sich  fiihrt."  ^^  But  feelings  of  SiJan- 
nung  and  Losung  are  "die  specifischen,  fur  die 
Aufmerksamkeitsvorgange  charakteristischen 
Elemente."  ^^  "Da  aber  Apperception  und 
Aufmerksamkeit  zeitlich  sich  entwickelnde  Vor- 
gange  sind,  die  zugleich  in  einer  bestimmten 
zeitlichen  Folge  wechseln,  indem  jede  Losung 
eine  vorangegangene  Spannung  fordert,  und 
eine  neue  Spannung  wiederum  nur  auf  Grund 
vorangegangener  Losungen  einsetzt,  so  sind 
diese  Gefiihlscomponenten  enger  als  die  iibrigen 
an  den  zeitlichen  Ablauf  der  Bewusstseinsvor- 
gange  gebunden."  ^°  Any  serious  doubt,  there- 
fore, about  Wundt 's  doctrine  of  attention  and 
apperception  must  at  the  same  time  jeopardise 
this  third  dimension  of  simple  feeling. 

So  far,  I  have  spoken  only  of  the  three  affec- 
tive dimensions ;  I  have  said  nothing  of  the 
multitude  of  elementary  qualities  which  the  di- 
mensions are  held  to  include.     "Die  qualitative 


THE  PLURALITY  OF  QUALITIES        151 

Mannigfaltigkeit  der  einfachen  Gefiihle  ist  un- 
absehbar  gross  und  jedenfalls  viel  grosser  als  die 
Mannigfaltigkeit  der  Empfindungen."  ^^  So  the 
Grundriss,  —  which  proceeds  to  give  two  rea- 
sons. First,  every  sensation  of  the  muhidimen- 
sional  sensation-systems  belongs  to  more  than 
one  affective  dimension.  Secondly  and  more 
importantly,  the  feelings  that  attach  to  sensa- 
tion-complexes, intensive,  spatial,  and  temporal 
ideas,  and  to  certain  stages  in  the  temporal  course 
of  emotion  and  volition,  are  nevertheless  them- 
selves irreducible,  and  must  therefore  be  counted 
among  the  elementary  affective  processes.  You 
will  notice  that  these  reasons  are  phrased  in  the 
language  of  a  special  psychological  system, 
though  the  appeal  to  introspection  is  implied. 
Later  on,  the  appeal  becomes  explicit ;  we  are 
reminded  that,  e.g,,  the  feeling  of  gravity,  Ernsts 
"in  verschiedenen  Fallen  in  seiner  Qualitat 
wieder  variiren  kann."  ^^  In  the  Vorlesungen, 
the  doctrine  of  the  multiplicity  of  affective  quali- 
ties follows  naturally  from  the  doctrine  of  the 
TotalgefiXhl}^  The  Physiologische  PsycJiologie 
relies  upon  an  *aufmerksame  Selbstbeobach- 
tung.'  ^^  We  are  apt  to  overlook  the  great  variety 
of  the  feelings,  partly  because  they  are  intimately 
bound  up  with  the  objective  contents  of  con- 
sciousness, partly  because  we  have  no  words  to 


(S 


152  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

express  them.  ''Angesichts  der  [an  der  Hand 
des  vergleichenden  Verfahrens  der  Eindrucks- 
methode]  ausgefulirten  Analyse  scheint  es  mir  in 
iiberwiegendem  Masse  wahrscheinlich,  dass  die 
seclis  Gnindformen  .  .  .  eben  nur  Grundformen 
sind,  von  denen  jede  einzelne  eine  selir  grosse 
Mannigfaltigkeit  im  ganzen  verwandter,  aber 
dabei  doch  von  Fall  zu  Fall  nuancirter  Ein- 
zelgefiilile  unter  sicli  begreift."  ^^ 

There  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt  that,  in  this 
matter  of  the  number  of  the  affective  qualities, 
the  psychological  pendulum  has  been  swinging, 
of  recent  years,  in  the  direction  that  Wundt  has 
taken.  Ladd  emphatically  repudiates  the  view 
that  '"pleasure-pains'  are  exhaustive  of  the  en- 
tire quality  of  the  feeling-aspect  of  conscious- 
ness." The  theory  is  simplicity  itself:  *'but 
simplicity,  in  the  interests  chiefly  of  biological 
and  experimental  psychology,  *gone  entirely 
mad.'"^®  I  do  not  know  whether  Ladd  felt 
pleased  or  pained  that  he  had  written  this  last 
sentence,  when  two  years  later  he  read  Wundt's 
Grundriss.  He  says  himself,  however,  that 
"almost  all  mental  states  which  are  marked  by 
strong  feeling  in  the  case  of  developed  minds 
are  mixed  feelings."  *^  At  any  rate,  he  works 
resolutely  through  the  sense-departments,  in 
1894,  and  makes  out  a  long  list  of  elementary 


THE  PLURALITY  OF  QUALITIES       153 

processes.  James,  in  the  same  year,  remarks 
that  "there  are  infinite  shades  and  tones  in  the 
various  emotional  excitements,  which  are  as  dis- 
tinct as  sensations  of  colour  are,  and  of  which 
one  is  quite  at  a  loss  to  predicate  either  pleasant 
or  painful  quality."  ^^  This  position  is,  of 
course,  entirely  compatible  with  a  dual  view  of 
Lust-Unlust,  of  "the  primary  GefiiJilston'' ;  in- 
deed, the  two  doctrines  seem  to  me  to  appear, 
side  by  side,  in  James'  own  exposition.  Never- 
theless, the  passage  may  fairly  be  cited  in  the 
present  connection.  Lipps,  again,  working  as 
it  were  from  the  opposite  pole  to  Wundt,  has 
arrived,  as  we  all  know,  at  a  very  complicated 
classification  of  the  feelings. ^^  Stumpf  has  ex- 
pressed the  opinion,  as  against  Kiilpe,  that 
"sinnliche  Annehmlichkeit "  and  "sinnliche  Un- 
annehmlichkeit "  cover  "eine  grossere  Mannig- 
faltigkeit  von  Gefuhlsqualitaten."  ^^  This  array 
of  convictions  is  imposing,  even  if  there  are 
authorities  —  Hoffding,  Kiilpe,  Jodl,  Ebbing- 
haus,  Lehmann,  Rehmke  ^^  —  upon  the  other 
side. 

The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  the  ultimate  ques- 
tion of  our  second  Lecture,  the  question  of  the 
criteria  of  affection,  has  not  been  settled.  The 
parties  to  the  present  controversy  do  not  really 
*  feel '  differently ;  but  they  approach  the  problem 


154  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

with  a  certain  attitude  towards  affective  process, 
with  a  certain  general  view  of  the  status  of  feel- 
ings in  consciousness.  Ebbinghaus  says  outright 
that  Wundt  and  Jodl,  e.g.,  are  'not  talking  of  the 
same  things.'  ^^  Orth  believes  that  Wundt 's 
theory  is  the  outcome  **  seiner  ursprlinglichen 
Auffassung  des  Verhaltnisses  zwischen  Empfin- 
dung  und  Gefuhl."  ^^  Ladd  writes  with  a  sort 
of  ethical,  even  religious,  atmosphere  upon  him : 
how  can  you  compare  the  pleasure  of  cheese  and 
beer  with  the  pleasure  of  seeing  a  good  Hamlet  ?  ^* 
Lipps  considers  the  feelings  as  modes  of  reference 
to  the  self;  feelings  are  "Ichinhalte  oder  Ich- 
qualitaten."^^  Stumpf  adopts  a  sensationalist 
view  of  the  sense-feelings ;  and  in  sensation 
qualitative  differentiation  is  obvious  enough. 
James  is  concerned  with  the  varieties  of  emotive 
experience,  and  his  protest  against  the  'hack- 
neyed psychological  doctrine'  that  pleasure  and 
pain  are  the  essence  of  emotion  comports,  as  I 
have  pointed  out,  with  a  strictly  dualistic  view 
of  the  affective  qualities  proper.  It  is  not  that 
our  affective  experience  is  radically  different,  but 
that  w^e  approach  it  from  different  directions,  see 
it  under  different  angles,  assimilate  it  in  terms 
of  our  systematic  associations. 

I  do  not  mean  that  the  point  at  issue  is  a  mere 
Etikettenfrage.     It    is    much    more    than    that. 


THE   TOTALGEFUHL  155 

Our  decision  'makes  a  difference,'  as  the  prag- 
matists  say,  to  the  whole  structure  of  our  psy- 
chological system.  And  it  must  be  remembered 
that  Wundt  does  not  acknowledge  any  other 
methods  than  those  employed  by  the  dualists, 
and  would  not  acquiesce  in  the  statement  that 
his  results  are  of  another  order.  He  comes 
within  our  universe  of  discourse ;  he  invites  argu- 
ment. I  therefore  proceed  to  argue ;  and  I  take 
as  ground  for  argument  an  illustration  which 
he  employs  on  more  than  one  occasion, — the 
feeling  which  attaches  to  the  common  chord 
c-e-g  .^^ 

Let  me  remind  you,  first,  of  Wundt's  doctrine 
of  the  Toialgejuhl}''  A  compound  feeling,  a 
feeling  due  to  the  confluence  of  a  number  of 
elementary  feelings,  is  always  psychologically 
simple  in  the  sense  that  it  has  its  own  irreducible 
quality,  but  may  also  permit  the  distinction  of 
its  various  components.  *'In  jedem  derartigen 
Gefuhl  lassen  sich  Gefuhlscomponenten  und  eine 
Gefuhlsresultante  unterscheiden."  The  compo- 
nents Wundt  terms  'partial  feelings,'  the  re- 
sultant, 'total  feeling';  we  have  had  an  in- 
stance already  in  the  'feeling  of  activity'  which 
results  from  the  compounding  of  tension  and 
excitement.  The  compound  feeling  thus  bears 
a  close  resemblance  to  the  formation  which,  in 


156  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

the  sphere  of  tonal  sensation,  is  called  a  fusion ; 
Wiindt  speaks,  in  the  Physiologische  Psychol- 
ogie  of  'affective  fusions.'  There  are  degrees 
of  affective,  as  there  are  degrees  of  tonal,  fusion ; 
the  partial  feelings  may  appear  simply  as  an  un- 
differentiated colouring  of  the  resultant,  or  may 
maintain  their  individuality,  though  in  a  sub- 
ordinate position,  alongside  of  the  total  feeling. 
After  this  preface,  we  are  ready  to  listen  to 
the  three  tones.  To  prevent  a  swamping  of  the 
partial  feelings  by  the  total  feeling,  —  the  high- 
est degree  of  affective  fusion,  —  we  take  the 
tones  separately  in  succession,  and  observe  how 
they  *feer  in  isolation.  The  tone  c,  heard  by 
itself,  affects  us,  Wundt  says,  by  way  of  a 
*  calm  seriousness '  or  a  *  quiet  cheerfulness ' ;  it 
brings  out  feelings  of  two  dimensions,  pleasant- 
ness-unpleasantness and  excitement-tranquilli- 
sation.  The  other  two,  e  and  g,  will  do  the 
same,  —  though  the  affective  qualities  will  be 
somewhat  different.  If,  now,  we  put  the  tones 
together  in  pairs,  every  pair  will  give  us  a  com- 
pound feeling:  we  have  the  three  total  feelings 
of  ce,  eg,  eg,  accompanied  or  coloured  by  the 
partial  feelings  which  we  have  compounded. 
And  if  the  conditions  are  favourable  for  obser- 
vation, we  should  be  able  to  distinguish  a  five- 
fold feeling  in  connection  with  every  pair;    the 


AN  EXPERIMENT  157 

two  dimensions  of  the  two  partial  feelings,  and 
the  total  feeling.  Now  let  us  sound  all  three 
tones  simultaneously.  We  have  the  total  feeling 
of  c-e-g;  we  have  three  relative  total  feelings, 
or  'partials  of  the  second  order,'  as  Wundt  calls 
them, — the  feelings  of  ce,  eg,  eg;  and  we  have 
the  'partial  feelings  of  the  first  order,'  the  six 
elementary  feelings  aroused  by  c,  e,  and  g.  The 
feeling  of  c-e-g  is  a  tenfold  complex.  Do  not 
forget  that  such  a  feeling  is,  for  Wundt,  an 
"  einheitliche  Mannigf altigkeit " ;  do  not  forget 
that  the  partial  feelings  may,  more  or  less  com- 
pletely, have  forfeited  their  independence.  But, 
with  all  allowance  made,  ask  yourselves  if  you 
experience  anything  like  the  body  of  feeling  that, 
on  Wundt's  theory,  you  'ought'  to  experience. 
Suppose  that,  in  spite  of  our  precautions,  affec- 
tive fusion  has  reached  its  highest  degree;  let 
the  partials  of  the  first  order  disappear  alto- 
gether, as  separate  components,  and  let  them 
remain  only  as  a  vague  colouring  of  the  whole 
affective  impression.  Now  your  compound  feel- 
ing should  be  a  fourfold  complex.  Surely,  it  is 
not;  surely,  the  feeling  lacks  the  depth,  the 
solidity,  that  a  feeling  thus  compounded  must 
possess;  surely,  you  can  describe  the  chord  in 
no  other  terms  than  'slightly  pleasant,'  'mod- 
erately agreeable.' 


158  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

I  think  that  it  is  fair  to  test  the  theory  in  this 
way,  by  the  judgment  of  a  group  of  psychologi- 
cally trained  observers,  seeing  that  Wundt  has 
laid  the  observation  before  the  psychological 
public  in  two  of  his  books.  I  have,  for  myself, 
repeated  the  test  often  and  again,  and  have 
varied  it  in  half-a-dozen  ways  :  always,  while  the 
chord  remains  a  single  impression,  a  sensible 
fusion  out  of  musical  setting  and  so  far  as  pos- 
sible freed  from  musical  significance,  I  get  the 
same  meagre  affective  result.  ^^ 

If,  now,  Wundt  retorts  that  in  this  and  like 
instances  we  are  feeling-deaf  and  feeling-blind, 
may  we  not  suggest,  on  our  side,  that  he  is 
organically  anaesthetic  .^  The  lack  of  interest 
that  Wundt  shows  in  the  organic  sensations  has 
always  been  a  source  of  wonderment  to  me. 
Take  the  new  edition  of  the  PJujsioIogische 
Psychologie.  Here  is  a  total  of  2035  pages. 
Of  these,  45  are  given  to  Tast-  und  Gemememp- 
findungen;  the  Gemeinemjjfindungen  alone, 
which  I  now  have  principally  in  mind,  receive 
four,  two  and  a  half  of  which  are  devoted  to 
pain  !  ^^  Of  course,  there  are  all  sorts  of  scat- 
tered references.  But  look  in  the  index  under 
Organempjindungen,  Gemeinem'pjindungen,  Nie- 
dere  Sinne,  Geleiikevipfindungen,  Muskelsinn,  — 
what    you    can    think    of.     Aside    from    Bewe- 


THE  ORGANIC  SENSATIONS  159 

gungsempfindungen  and  Augenbewegimgen  there 
is  surprisingly  little.  Meumann  makes  a  similar 
complaint  with  regard  to  Nagel's  Handbuch. 
''Vermisst  hat  der  Referent,  dass  den  inneren 
Empfindungen  (Organempfindungen)  kein  aus- 
fiihrlicheres  Kapitel  gewidmet  wird;  die  gegen- 
wartige  Physiologie  scheint  sich  mit  der  Frage 
der  Sensibilitat  der  inneren  Organe  nicht  mehr 
viel  zu  beschaftigen."  ^^  Now  I  personally  be- 
lieve that  the  organic  sensations  play  an  im- 
portant part,  not  only  in  feeling  and  emotion, 
but  in  many  other  departments  of  the  mental 
life :  in  the  formation  of  sensory  judgments,  in 
the  mechanism  of  memory  and  recognition,  in 
motives  to  action,  in  the  primary  perception  of 
the  self.  It  is  true  that,  as  compared  with  what 
w^e  know^  of  sight  and  hearing,  our  knowledge  of 
the  organic  sensations  is  scrappy  in  form  and 
small  in  amount ;  that  is  why  I  have  said,  in 
another  connection,  that  **of  all  problems  in 
the  psychology  of  sense  w^hich  are  now  before 
us,  the  problem  of  the  nature,  number,  and  laws 
of  connection  of  the  organic  sensations  appears 
to  me  to  be  the  most  pressing."  ^^  Let  me  add, 
now,  that  if  any  one  of  you  is  thinking  of  a  piece 
of  work  in  this  general  field,  he  would  do  far 
better,  in  my  opinion,  to  start  out  from  the  side 
of  the  organic  sensations  than  to  succumb  to 


160  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

the   fascinations    of   pneumograph    and   sphyg- 
mograph. 

Well !  I  believe  that  organic  sensations  are 
responsible  for  the  dimensions  of  excitement- 
depression  and  tension-relaxation.  On  this  point 
I  can  claim  the  support  of  Ebbinghaus  ^"  and, 
I  suppose,  of  all  those  who  accept  the  James- 
Lange  theory  of  emotion.  Stumpf,  too,  declares 
that  he  cannot  regard  them  as  ''Elementarer- 
scheinungen,"  though  he  offers  no  further 
analysis.^^  But  I  believe,  also,  that  organic 
sensations  are  responsible  in  certain  cases  for  a 
Nuancirung,  a  shading  and  colouring,  of  feelings 
in  the  dimension  of  pleasantness-unpleasantness. 
I  say  'in  certain  cases,'  for  two  reasons.  First, 
it  is  entirely  possible  that  this  Nuaiicirung  is 
a  matter,  not  of  simple  sense-feeling,  but  of 
association,  of  emotive  residua. ^^  Secondly, 
however,  I  do  not  think  that  the  colouring  and 
shading  is  as  universal  as  Wundt  asserts.  Vogt, 
whose  method  of  suggestion  led  him  to  the  dis- 
tinction of  four  pairs  of  feelings,  is  unable  to 
discover  it.^  Orth  cannot  find  it,  in  the  intro- 
spections that  he  educes  by  the  Reizinethode .^^ 
Storring's  observers,  on  the  other  hand,  report 
a  qualitative  difference  between  Stimmungslust 
and  Em/pfindiingslust ;  but  though  this  is,  so  to 
say,  a  gross  difference,  the  expressions  used  are 


THE  METHOD  OF  IMPRESSION         161 

singularly  disappointing.  We  read,  in  some 
detail,  of  extensive  differences,  differences  in 
intensive  fluctuation,  differences  of  excitement 
and  passivity;  but  on  the  side  of  quality  we 
have  only  ''Stimmungslust  ist  gleichartiger,"  and 
the  dogmatic  statement  ''Zwischen  Stimmungs- 
lust  und  Empfindungslust  besteht  qualitative 
Differenz."®^  I  myself  have  never  observed  a 
qualitative  differentiation  of  pleasantness-un- 
pleasantness, under  experimental  conditions; 
and  when  I  observe  a  difference  in  everyday 
life,  —  a  difference  on  the  level  of  the  sense-feel- 
ing, —  I  seem  to  find  a  reason  for  it  in  concomi- 
tant organic  sensations. 

I  have  sought,  on  two  occasions,  to  put 
Wundt's  theory  to  an  experimental  test.  The 
method  employed  was  the  method  of  impression, 
in  Colin 's  form  of  paired  comparisons.  The 
procedure,  in  brief,  is  as  follows.  A  series  of 
stimuli  —  tones  or  colours  or  rhythms  —  is  laid 
out,  and  the  stimuli  are  presented  to  the  observer 
two  at  a  time,  care  being  taken  that  every  mem- 
ber of  the  series  is  paired  with  every  other  mem- 
ber. The  observer  has  to  decide  which  of  the 
two  stimuli  shown  him  is  the  more  pleasant,  the 
more  unpleasant,  the  more  exciting,  the  more 
depressing,  and  so  on.  If  colours  are  exhibited, 
he  points  to  right  or  left,  as  the  case  may  be; 


162  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

if  tones  are  used,  he  notes  down  *1'  or  *2,' 
according  as  the  first  or  second  stimulus  is  pre- 
ferred. The  work  is  laborious,  and  the  method 
consumes  a  large  amount  of  time.  We  have, 
however,  the  great  advantage  of  a  twofold  con- 
trol, objective  and  subjective. 

The  subjective  control  is  afforded,  of  course, 
by  the  introspection  of  the  observers.  The  in- 
trospective task  is  extremely  simple;  the  ob- 
server has  merely  to  be  passive,  to  let  himself 
go,  to  allow  the  stimuli  to  take  affective  pos- 
session of  him ;  and  then  to  indicate,  in  the  par- 
ticular instance,  which  of  the  two  makes  the 
stronger  impression.  Moreover,  since  the  in- 
trospective experience  within  a  series  is  cumu- 
lative, all  of  the  same  kind,  the  observer  is  able, 
in  the  intervals  betw^een  successive  series,  to 
give  a  general  account  of  his  method  of  judg- 
ment, of  the  nature  of  his  affective  reaction. 
The  objective  control  is  afforded  by  the  course 
of  the  affective  judgments  themselves.  If,  e.g.^ 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  are  really  affec- 
tive opposites,  then  the  *  curves'  or  tracings 
which  indicate  the  distribution  of  judgments  in 
parallel  *  pleasant'  and  *  unpleasant'  series 
should  be  diametrically  opposed :  a  colour 
which  stands  high  on  the  scale  of  pleasantness 
should  stand  low  on  the  scale  of  unpleasantness. 


THE  METHOD  OF  IMPRESSION  163 

and  contrariwise.  If  excitement-depression  and 
tension-relaxation  also  denote  affective  oppo- 
sites,  then  their  'curves'  should  be  similarly 
opposed. 

The  stimuli  chosen  were  colours,  musical 
tones,  and  groups  of  metronome  beats  given  at 
varying  rates.  The  two  former  had  been  speci- 
fied by  Wundt  as  productive  of  excitement-de- 
pression, the  latter  as  productive  of  tension- 
relaxation.  My  idea  was,  on  the  subjective 
side,  to  test  by  their  means  the  immediacy  of 
reaction  in  these  dimensions.  In  the  case  of 
pleasantness-unpleasantness,  you  cannot  say 
what  the  basis  of  your  judgment  is,  otherwise 
than  that  it  resides  in  the  stimulus;  the  one  of 
two  colours  or  two  tones  is  more  pleasant  than 
the  other,  just  as  directly  as  it  is  bluer  or  louder. 
Suppose,  then,  that  colours  and  tones  bring  out 
equally  prompt  and  unmediated  judgments  of 
excitement-depression,  and  that  metronome  in- 
tervals bring  out  equally  prompt  and  unmediated 
judgments  of  tension-relaxation :  then  we  shall 
have  some  ground  for  the  acceptance  of  the  two 
new  affective  dimensions.  Suppose,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  judgments  of  excitement  and  ten- 
sion are  forced  or  difficult,  mediated  by  associa- 
tions or  by  organic  sensations :  then  we  shall 
have    an    introspective    differentiation    of   these 


164  TRIDIMENSIONAL  TPIEORY  OF  FEELING 

judgments  from  those  of  pleasantness-un- 
pleasantness. 

On  the  objective  side,  I  argued  in  much  the 
same  way.  Suppose  that  the  curves,  of  which 
I  spoke  just  now,  show  typical  differences,  —  so 
that  the  distribution  of  judgments  of  pleasant- 
ness takes  one  course,  that  of  judgments  of  ex- 
citement another,  and  that  of  judgments  of 
tension  a  third,  —  while  still  the  curves  of  pleas- 
antness and  unpleasantness,  of  excitement  and 
depression,  and  of  tension  and  relaxation  are 
related  as  opposites :  then,  again,  there  will  be 
ground  for  the  acceptance  of  Wundt's  dimen- 
sions. Suppose,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  curves 
of  excitement  and  of  relaxation  agree  with  the 
curve  of  pleasantness  and  the  curves  of  depres- 
sion and  of  tension  with  the  curve  of  unpleas- 
antness:  then,  since  the  pleasant-unpleasant 
dimension  is  not  in  dispute,  we  have  a  strong 
indication  that  that  alone  is  fundamental  and 
that  the  other  two  dimensions  are  affective  only 
because  and  in  so  far  as  pleasantness  and  un- 
pleasantness are  involved  in  them. 

The  results  of  the  first  investigation,  in  which 
colours  and  musical  tones  were  tested  for 
pleasantness-unpleasantness  and  excitement-de- 
pression, and  metronome  intervals  for  pleasant- 
ness-unpleasantness and  tension-relaxation,  were 


THE  METHOD  OF  IMPRESSION         165 

published  in  the  Wundt  Festschrift;  those  of 
the  second,  in  which  the  same  tones  and  intervals 
were  tested  for  all  three  of  the  Wundtian  dimen- 
sions, were  published  by  Hayes  in  the  American 
Journal  of  Psychology.  They  may  be  summed 
up  under  three  headings. ^^ 

(1)  Judgments  of  pleasantness  and  unpleas- 
antness are  direct,  easy,  and  natural.  The 
qualities  themselves  appear  to  the  observers  to 
be  simple  and  homogeneous,  identical  through- 
out the  experiments.  Their  opposite  character 
is  vouched  for  both  by  introspection  and  by  the 
course  of  the  curves. 

(2)  Judgments  of  excitement  are  less  direct, 
and  the  term  is  equivocal.  If  it  is  taken  as  the 
opposite  of  depressing  melancholy,  its  curve 
agrees  with  that  of  pleasantness;  if  it  is  taken 
as  the  opposite  of  tranquillity  or  soothing  calm, 
its  curve  agrees  with  that  of  unpleasantness :  the 
reverse  curves  then  agree  with  those  of  un- 
pleasantness and  of  pleasantness,  respectively. 
If,  in  default  of  special  instruction,  the  observer 
vacillates  between  the  two  meanings  of  the  word, 
the  curve  shows  a  vacillating  character,  —  partly 
'pleasant'  and  partly  'unpleasant';  the  period 
and  nature  of  the  affective  oscillation  are  vouched 
for  by  introspection.  Judgments  of  depression 
are,  in  their  turn,  distinctly  less  direct  than  those 


166  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

of  excitement,  and  are  often  associatively  medi- 
ated. There  is  no  evidence  of  a  dimension  of 
excitement-depression,  still  less  of  a  number  of 
exciting  and  depressing  qualities. 

(3)  Judgments  of  tension  are  easy;  but  ten- 
sion is  described,  throughout,  in  kinaesthetic 
terms.  Increasing  tension  means,  uniformly,  in- 
creasing unpleasantness,  and  the  curves  of  the 
two  classes  of  judgment  correspond.  Relaxa- 
tion may  be  taken  as  the  opposite  of  unpleasant 
tension,  in  which  case  its  curve  agrees  with  the 
curve  of  pleasantness,  or  may  be  identified  with 
depression.  Nowhere  is  there  evidence,  in  this 
third  case,  either  of  a  new  affective  dimension 
or  of  specific  qualities. 

Naturally,  these  results  are  not  'conclusive.' 
For  one  thing,  the  experiments  are  too  few. 
For  another,  they  were  obtained  in  a  single 
laboratory,  and  that  a  laboratory  from  which 
criticism  of  Wundt's  doctrine  had  already  pro- 
ceeded. For  a  third,  the  argument  upon  which 
the  experiments  rest  is  not  demonstrably  valid. 
It  w^ould,  I  think,  be  a  very  strange  thing  if  three 
sets  of  stimuli  should  affect  a  number  of  ob- 
servers by  way  of  excitement-depression  (or 
tension-relaxation)  precisely  as  they  do  by  way 
of  pleasantness-unpleasantness,  —  but  nobody 
can  prove  that  such  a  state  of  affairs  is,  on  the 


SUMMARY  167 

plural  theory,  impossible.  Were  I  a  champion 
of  affective  plurality,  I  should  unhesitatingly 
urge  these  objections  to  the  work,  and  I  have  no 
desire  to  slur  them  over  because  I  am  on  the 
other  side.  Nevertheless,  the  results  are  experi- 
mental evidence;  Wundt  cannot,  in  the  future, 
appeal  to  the  method  of  impression  as  confi- 
dently as  he  has  appealed  in  the  past.^^  And  if 
our  investigations  are  compared  with  those  of 
Brahn  and  Gent,  upon  which  Wundt  relies  in 
the  Physiologische  Psychologie,  it  will  appear, 
I  am  very  sure,  that  the  critical  sauce  meted  out 
to  the  goose  must  be  considerably  strengthened 
for  the  gander. '^^ 

If  now,  in  conclusion,  I  may  give,  with  all 
due  modesty,  my  own  reading  of  the  situation, ^^ 
it  is  this:  that  Wundt's  tridimensional  theory 
of  feelings  shows,  as  it  were  in  typical  form,  the 
peculiar  features  that  distinguish  his  psychology 
at  large.  Wundt  has,  in  an  eminent  degree,  the 
power  of  generalisation,  and  his  generalisations 
cover  —  as  generalisations  oftentimes  do  not !  — 
an  encyclopaedic  range  of  detailed  knowledge. 
But  the  exercise  of  this  very  power  leads  him  to 
put  a  certain  stamp  of  finality  upon  his  theories, 
as  if  questions  were  settled  in  the  act  of  systema- 
tisation.     You   know   what   I   am  thinking  of : 


168  TRIDIMENSIONAL  THEORY  OF  FEELING 

the  theory  of  space  perception,  the  theory  of 
attention,  the  definition  and  demarcation  of 
psychology  itself.  The  affective  theory  which 
we  have  been  discussing  is  typical,  then,  both 
for  good  and  for  bad.  It  is  good,  in  that  it 
gives  rounded  and  complete  expression  to  a 
psychological  tendency  that,  in  many  minds,  has 
been  struggling  for  utterance.  It  is  bad,  in  that 
it  offers  a  solution,  ready-made,  of  problems 
which  in  actual  fact  are  ripe  only  for  prelimi- 
nary and  tentative  discussion.  Like  those  other 
theories  of  attention  and  of  space-perception,  it 
represents  the  culmination  of  an  epoch  of  psycho- 
logical thought ;  but,  like  them  again,  it  is  rather 
the  starting-point  for  further  inquiry  than  the 
statement  of  assured  psychological  result.  On 
the  whole,  I  take  it  as  matter  of  encouragement 
that  generalisation  has  been  at  all  possible. 
What  has  been  done,  provisionally,  at  a  lower 
level  of  knowledge,  can  be  done  again,  and  bet- 
ter done,  at  a  higher.  In  the  meantime,  we 
must  not  be  dogmatic,  we  must  not  be  too  im- 
patient for  results,  we  must  not  set  theory  above 
observed  fact;  recognising  to  the  full  the  diffi- 
culty and  the  merit  of  constructive  effort,  we 
must  use  all  the  weapons  in  our  critical  armoury 
against  ourselves  as  against  others,  and  against 
others  as  against  ourselves. 


V 

ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 


LECTURE  ^ 

ATTENTION   AS   SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

I  SUPPOSE  that  every  experimental  psycholo- 
gist has,  at  one  time  or  another,  been  con- 
fronted with  the  sceptical  question  :  '  What,  after 
all,  has  the  experimental  method  done  for  general 
psychology  ? '  As  a  rule,  it  is  not  easy  to  find  an 
answer :  first,  because  the  questioner,  both  by 
the  fact  and  by  the  manner  of  his  asking,  betrays 
an  ignorance  of  psychology  at  large ;  but  sec- 
ondly, and  more  especially,  because  the  influence 
of  the  experimental  method  has,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  made  itself  felt  over  the  whole  extent  of  the 
psychological  system,  and  instances  fail  you  by 
the  very  number  and  urgency  of  your  associa- 
tions. "  Wenn  ich  zusammenfassend  sagen  soil," 
—  this  is  Wundt's  reply  to  the  question,  —  "was 
ich  selbst  an  psychologischen  Einsichten  der 
experiment ellen  Methode  verdanke,  so  kann  ich 
nur  antworten :  Alles,  was  ich  auf  diesem 
Gebiete  fiir  richtig  und  zum  Theil  fiir  unum- 
stosslich  halte."  ^  That  is  largely  and  positively 
said.  But  if  we  want  details,  I  think  that  the 
experimentalists  may  justly  point  to  three  prin- 

171 


172    ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

cipal  achievements :  the  complete  recastmg  of 
the  doctrine  v  f  memory  and  association,^  the 
creation  of  a  scientific  psychology  of  individual 
differences,^  and  +he  discovery  of  attention/ 

To  say,  however,  that  experimental  psy- 
chology *  discovered '  attention  is  to  make  a  fairly 
sweeping  claim,  and  a  claim  that  you  may 
reasonably  incline  to  dispute.  What  of  Hamil- 
ton ?  You  will  remind  me  that  Hamilton  gives 
a  long  discussion  of  "attention  as  a  general 
phenomenon  of  consciousness";^  you  may 
even  recall  the  fact  that  I  myself,  in  a  previous 
Lecture,  quoted  this  discussion.*  What  of 
James  Mill,  and  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of 
the  Analysis  ?  ^  What  of  Bain,  and  the  theory 
of  attention  that  we  find  in  The  Emotions  and 
the  Will  ?  ^  Well !  I  make  you  a  present  of 
Hamilton  and  Mill  and  Bain.  I  will  do  more; 
I  will  cite  a  strongly  worded  sentence  from 
Braunschweiger.  "It  would  be  hard,"  says  this 
author,  a  special  student  of  the  history  of  atten- 
tion, "to  find  a  single  idea  or  thought  that  can 
contribute  in  any  sort  of  way  to  the  solution  of 
this  important  problem,  which  does  not  appear 
at  least  m  nuce  during  the  eighteenth  century."  ^ 
No  doubt !  —  and  we  are  told,  in  the  same  man- 
ner, that  Darwinism  goes  back  to  the  philosophy 

*  P.  75. 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  ATTENTION      173 

of  Ancient  Greece.  But  what  I  mean  by  the 
'discovery'  of  attention  is  the  explicit  formula- 
tion of  the  problem ;  the  recognition  of  its 
separate  status  and  fundamental  importance; 
the  realisation  that  the  doctrine  of  attention  is 
the  nerve  of  the  whole  psychological  system, 
and  that  as  men  judge  of  it,  so  shall  they  be 
judged  before  the  general  tribunal  of  psychology. 

In  this  sense,  surely,  experimental  psychology 
discovered  attention.  And  as  we  connect  the 
name  of  Helmholtz  with  the  doctrine  of  sensible 
quality,  and  the  name  of  Fechner  with  that  of 
sensible  intensity,  so  must  we  connect  the  name 
of  Wundt  with  the  doctrine  of  attention,  — 
which,  as  I  see  it,  is  that  of  sensible  clearness. 
The  experiments  which  Wundt  carried  out  in 
the  early  sixties  are  the  beginning  of  the  whole 
matter ;  ^  and  the  system  which  Wundt  has 
wrought  out  is  informed  and  infused  with  atten- 
tional  theory.  The  veriest  beginner  knows  that, 
if  he  goes  to  Wundt,  he  must  read  about  apper- 
ception !  ^^ 

It  is  true  that  the  discovery  of  attention  did 
not  result  in  any  immediate  triumph  of  the 
experimental  method.  It  was  something  like 
the  discovery  of  a  hornets'  nest :  the  first  touch 
brought  out  a  whole  swarm  of  insistent  problems. 
We  have   only  to  travel  beyond  the  limits  of 


174    ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

Wundt's  system,  and  we  find  that  *  chaos'  of 
which  Pillsbury  complains.  *'Die  Aufmerk- 
samkeit,"  says  Ebbinghaus,  '*ist  eine  rechte 
Verlegenheit  der  Psychologic."  ^^  I  think  that 
he  has  felt  the  Verlegenheit  himself;  there  is  a 
marked  difference  between  his  accounts  of  sen- 
sation and  association,  on  the  one  side,  and  his 
treatment  of  attention,  on  the  other.  A  char- 
acteristic feature,  both  of  Ebbinghaus'  sections 
and  of  Pillsbury' s  recent  book,  is  the  constant 
appeal  to  casual  introspection,  to  the  occur- 
rences of  everyday  life;  and  though  the  appeal 
is  useful,  as  sustaining  the  reader's  interest,  it 
is  none  the  less  a  confession  of  scientific  weak- 
ness. We  expect  the  illustrations  in  a  modern 
work  on  electricity  to  lead  us,  beyond  themselves, 
to  a  severely  technical  exposition;  we  do  not 
expect  to  stop  short  with  the  illustrations. 

I  shall  begin  my  own  discussion  of  attention 
with  an  attempt  to  lay  a  very  ancient  ghost,  — 
the  ghost  that  stalks  through  current  statements 
of  psychological  method.  Kant  told  us,  more 
than  a  century  ago,  that  psychology  could  never 
rise  to  the  rank  of  an  experimental  science,  be- 
cause psychological  observation  interferes  ^ith 
its  own  object.^'  We  have  bowed  down  before 
this  criticism;    and,  because  the  facts  were  con- 


THE  METHOD  OF  PSYCHOLOGY        175 

tinually  against  it,  we  have  tried  in  all  sorts  of 
ways  to  get  round  the  facts,  and  to  save  Kant's 
infallibility  while  we  still  went  on  with  our  ex- 
periments. Let  us,  now,  look  the  objection 
squarely  in  the  face.  Is  there  anything  peculiar, 
anything  fatal,  about  attention  to  mental 
processes  ? 

We  are  agreed,  I  suppose,  that  scientific 
method  may  be  summed  up  in  the  single  word 
'  observation ' ;  the  only  way  to  work  in  science 
is  to  observe  those  phenomena  which  form  the 
subject-matter  of  science.  And  observation 
means  two  things :  attention  to  the  phenomena, 
and  record  of  the  phenomena ;  clear  experience, 
and  communication  of  the  experience  in  words 
or  formulae.  We  shall  agree,  further,  that,  in 
order  to  secure  clear  experience  and  adequate 
report,  science  has  recourse  to  experiment,  — 
an  experiment  being,  in  the  last  resort,  simply 
an  observation  that  may  be  repeated,  isolated, 
and  varied.  What,  then,  is  the  difference  be- 
tween natural  science  and  psychology  ?  between 
experimental  inspection  and  experimental  intro- 
spection ? 

We  may  set  out  from  two  very  simple  cases. 
(1)  Suppose  that  you  are  shown  two  paper  discs, 
the  one  of  an  uniform  violet,  the  other  composed 
half  of  red  and  half  of  blue.     Your  problem  is, 


176     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

SO  to  adjust  the  proportions  of  red  and  blue  in 
the  second  disc  that  the  violet  which  appears 
on  rotation  exactly  matches  the  violet  of  the  first 
disc.  You  may  repeat  this  set  of  observations 
as  often  as  you  will ;  you  may  isolate  the  observa- 
tions by  working  in  a  room  that  is  free  from  other, 
possibly  disturbing,  colours;  you  may  vary  the 
observations  by  w^orking  towards  the  equality 
of  the  violets  first  from  a  tw  o-colour  disc  that  is 
distinctly  too  blue,  then  from  a  disc  that  is  dis- 
tinctly too  red :  and  so  on.  (2)  Suppose,  again, 
that  the  chord  c-e-g  is  struck,  and  that  you  are 
required  to  say  how  many  tones  it  contains. 
You  may  repeat  this  observation ;  you  may  isolate 
it,  by  w  orking  in  a  quiet  room ;  you  may  vary  it,' 
by  sounding  the  tones  first  in  succession  and  then 
all  together,  or  by  striking  the  chord  at  different 
parts  of  the  scale.  It  is  clear  that,  in  these  cases, 
there  is  no  difference  between  introspection  and 
inspection.  You  are  using  the  same  method 
that  you  would  use  for  counting  the  swings  of 
a  pendulum,  or  for  taking  the  readings  from  a 
galvanometer  scale,  in  the  physical  laboratory. 
Now  let  us  take  some  instances  in  which 
the  material  of  introspection  is  more  complex. 
(3)  Suppose  that  a  word  is  called  out  to  you,  and 
that  you  are  asked  to  observe  the  effect  which 
this  stimulus  produces  upon  consciousness :  how 


THE  METHOD  OF  PSYCHOLOGY        177 

the  word  affects  you,  what  ideas  it  calls  up,  and 
so  forth.  The  observation  may  be  repeated ; 
it  may  be  isolated,  —  you  may  be  seated  in  a 
dark  and  silent  room,  free  from  disturbances; 
and  it  may  be  varied,  —  different  words  may  be 
called  out,  the  word  may  be  flashed  upon  a 
screen  instead  of  spoken,  etc.  Here,  however, 
there  does  seem  to  be  a  difference  between  intro- 
spection and  inspection.  The  observer  who  is 
watching  the  course  of  a  chemical  reaction,  or 
the  movements  of  some  microscopical  creature, 
can  jot  down  from  moment  to  moment  the 
.successive  phases  of  the  observed  phenomenon. 
But  if  you  try  to  report  the  changes  in  conscious- 
ness, wdiile  these  changes  are  in  progress,  you 
interfere  with  consciousness;  your  translation 
of  the  mental  processes  into  words  introduces 
new  factors  into  the  experience  itself.  (4)  Sup- 
pose, lastly,  that  you  are  observing  a  feeling  or 
an  emotion :  a  feeling  of  disappointment  or 
annoyance,  an  emotion  of  anger  or  chagrin. 
Experimental  control  is  still  possible;  situations 
may  be  arranged,  in  the  psychological  laboratory, 
such  that  these  feelings  may  be  repeated,  isolated 
and  varied.  But  your  observation  of  them 
interferes,  even  more  seriously  than  before,  with 
the  course  of  consciousness.  Cool  consideration 
of   an   emotion   is   fatal   to   its   very   existence ; 


178     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

your    anger    disappears,    your    disappointment 
evaporates,  as  you  examine  it. 

To  overcome  this  difficulty  of  the  introspective 
method,  students  of  psychology  are  usually 
recommended  to  delay  their  observation  until 
the  process  to  be  described  has  run  its  course, 
and  then  to  call  it  back  and  describe  it  from 
memory.  Introspection  thus  becomes  retro- 
spection ;  introspective  examination  becomes 
fost  mortem  examination.  The  rule  is,  often- 
times, a  good  one  for  the  beginner;  and  there 
are  cases  in  which  even  the  experienced  psycholo- 
gist will  be  wise  to  follow  it.  But  it  is  by  no 
means  universal.  For  we  must  remember,  first, 
that  the  observations  in  question  may  be  repeated. 
There  is,  then,  no  reason  why  the  observer  to 
whom  the  word  is  called  out,  or  in  whom  the 
emotion  is  set  up,  should  not  report  at  once  upon 
the  initial  stage  of  his  experience  :  upon  the  imme- 
diate effect  of  the  ward,  upon  the  beginning  of 
the  emotive  process.  It  is  true  that  this  report 
interrupts  the  observation.  But  after  the  first 
stage  has  been  accurately  described,  further 
observations  may  be  taken,  and  the  second,  third, 
and  following  stages  similarly  described ;  so 
that  presently  a  complete  report  upon  the  w^hole 
experience  is  obtained.  There  is,  in  theory, 
some  danger  that  the  stages  are  artificially  sepa- 


THE  METHOD  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  179 

rated;  consciousness  is  a  flow,  a  process,  and  if 
we  divide  it  up,  we  run  the  risk  of  missing  cer- 
tain intermediate  links.  In  practice,  however, 
this  danger  has  proved  to  be  very  small,  —  wit- 
ness the  stress  laid  by  many  psychologists  upon 
*  fringes'  and  'relational  feelings';  and  we  may 
always  have  recourse  to  retrospection  as  an 
auxiliary  method,  and  compare  our  partial 
results  with  our  memory  of  a  like  experience  un- 
broken. Moreover,  —  and  this  is  a  point  too 
often  lost  sight  of,  —  the  practised  observer  falls 
into  an  introspective  attitude,  has  the  introspec- 
tive habit,  so  to  say,  ingrained  in  the  texture  of 
his  mind ;  so  that  it  does  become  possible  for 
him,  not  only  to  take  mental  notes  while  the  ob- 
servation is  in  progress,  without  interfering  with 
consciousness,  but  even  to  jot  down  written  notes, 
as  the  histologist  does  while  his  eye  is  still  held 
to  the  ocular  of  the  microscope.  Let  me  cite 
a  parallel  case.  All  of  us  who  are  engaged  in 
intellectual  work,  in  the  study  and  the  teach- 
ing of  a  science,  are  obliged  to  read  a  very  great 
deal,  and  to  read  critically  and  discerningly, 
in  the  state  of  selective  attention.  Now  the  ex- 
perience that  I  wish  to  bring  to  your  minds  is 
this :  that,  as  one  is  reading,  one  is  able  to  take 
mental  note  of  passages  to  be  remembered  and 
employed,  without  appreciable  pause  in  the  pro- 


180     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

cess  of  reading  itself,  and  without  even  momen- 
tary loss  of  the  thread  of  the  writer's  argument. 
I  am  not  concerned  here  with  the  analysis  of  this 
experience,  but  with  the  mere  fact,  —  with  the 
fact  that,  when  we  close  the  covers  of  a  book  after 
two  or  three  hours'  reading,  we  have  marked 
down  half-a-dozen  passages  for  further  use  with- 
out interruption  of  the  main  current  of  conscious- 
ness. That  is  the  technical,  critical  attitude; 
and  the  introspective  attitude  is  akin  to  it. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  again,  from  the  results 
of  such  experiments  as  those  of  Solomons  and 
Stein,^^  that  the  waiting  of  notes,  brief  catch- 
w^ords  and  symbols,  need  not  in  any  way  inter- 
fere with  the  introspection  of  the  moment.  And 
if  we  refer  the  disappearance  of  affective  processes 
to  the  incompatibility  of  affection  and  attention, 
—  I  have  spoken  of  this  matter  earlier,  —  rather 
than  to  the  impossibility  of  direct  introspection 
in  general,  we  have,  I  think,  made  out  our  case 
all  along  the  line;  there  is  no  difference,  in 
principle,  between  inspection  and  mtrospection.^* 
So  far,  then,  as  my  own  psychological  thinking 
is  concerned,  I  do  not  believe  that  that  ghost  will 
walk  again.  Attention  in  psychology  and  atten- 
tion in  natural  science  are  of  the  same  nature 
and  obey  the  same  laws.  But  now  —  what  is 
attention  ? 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  ATTENTION         181 

The  analytical  study  of  attention  has  been 
subject  to  two  adverse  influences :  the  pressure 
of  popular  psychology,  and  the  obviousness  of 
application.  Popular  psychology  regards  atten- 
tion, indifferently,  as  faculty  and  as  manifesta- 
tion of  faculty.  It  is  a  faculty,  whose  operation 
produces  or  prevents  certain  changes  in  the 
mental  life ;  it  is  also  the  activity  or  the  state  — 
the  activity  of  remarking,  noticing,  observing; 
the  state  of  sustained  concentration  —  which 
manifests  and  attests  that  operation. ^^  Scientific 
psychology  has,  in  very  large  measure,  fought 
itself  clear  of  the  theory  of  faculties ;  but  the  in- 
fluence of  the  popular  conception  is  still  shown 
in  the  tendency  to  treat  the  attentive* conscious- 
ness as  a  whole,  to  synthetise  objective  and  sub- 
jective, incidental  and  essential,  in  a  single  view. 
There  is,  of  course,  a  typical  attentive  conscious- 
ness, as  there  is  a  typical  memorial  or  imaginative 
or^expectant  or  habituated  consciousness.  Nev- 
ertheless, the  road  to  assured  result  lies  through 
the  elements  of  consciousness,  and  has  conscious- 
ness itself  as  its  goal;  ^^'  short  cuts  to  synthesrs, 
however  promising,  end  always  in  one-sided 
theory. 

The  intrinsic  tendency  of  psychology  to  deal 
with  attention  in  the  large  has  been  further 
strengthened    by    the    practical    importance    of 


182     ATTENTION   AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

attention,  its  importance  in  educational  regard. 
Here,  if  anywhere,  the  passage  from  theory  to 
practice  has  seemed  to  be  short  and  easy ;  here, 
if  anywhere,  a  sound  psychology  might  be  of 
immediate  service  to  the  responsive  teacher. 
Since,  however,  the  problems  of  education  are 
necessarily  formulated  in  terms  of  a  completed 
psychological  system,  and  since  they  are  of  the 
kind  that  requires  speedy  solution,  this  obvious- 
ness of  application  has  been  a  real  hindrance 
to  psychology;  it  has  held  us  to  the  old  paths, 
and  has  discouraged  that  work  of  scattered 
exploration  by  which  alone  a  science  is  enabled 
to  advance. 

I  think  that  these  two  things  —  tradition  and 
application  —  are  mainly  responsible  for  the 
unsettled  state  of  attentional  psychology.  But  I 
think  also  that,  in  spite  of  these  two  things, 
analysis  has  gone  far  enough  to  furnish  us  with  a 
clue  to  the  attentional  problem.  It  seems  to  me 
beyond  question  that  the  problem  of  attention 
centres  in  the  fact  of  sensible  clearness.  Let  me 
call  my  witnesses  ! 

There  are  two  men  who  have  a  special  claim 
to  be  heard  in  this  matter.  The  first  is  Wundt, 
and  his  claim  is  of  long  standing.  Now  Wundt 
declares  that  there  are  two  "  wesentliche  Bestand- 
theile,"   two   essential   factors  —  and   the   word 


ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS     183 

'essential'  is  used  in  the  sense  of  'necessary/ 
not  of  '  important '  —  in  every  process  of  atten- 
tion :  first,  the  increased  clearness  of  a  particular 
idea  or  group  of  ideas,  which  is  connected  with  the 
characteristic  feeling  of  activity;  and  secondly 
the  inhibition  of  other  available  impressions  or 
memory-images.  Attention,  in  other  words, 
^tneans  a  redistribution  of  clearness  in  conscious- 
ness, the  rise  of  some  elements  and  the  fall  of 
others,  with  an  accompanying  total  feeling  of  a 
characteristic  kind.  That  is  the  statement  of  the 
Physiologische  Psychologie  of  1903;  and  the 
discussion  of  attention  in  1874  opens,  in  the  same 
spirit,  with  the  now  familiar  analogy  of  the 
Blickfeld  and  Blickjpunkt}'^  ,  Our  second  wit- 
ness is  Pillsbury,  who  writes,  without  theoretical 
prepossession,  from  a  general  review  of  what 
had  been  said  and  done  in  the  field  of  attention 
up  to  1903.  Pillsbury's  statement  is  that  "  I'atten- 
tion  accroit  la  clarte  des  sensations  sur  lesquelles 
elle  porte."  He  goes  on  :  "il  est  tres  difficile  de 
preciser  .  .  .  ce  que  Ton  entend  par  clarte. 
Pourtant  tout  le  monde  salt  ce  que  le  terme  sig- 
nifie  et  tout  le  monde  a  eprouve  le  changement 
qui  s'opere  pendant  Tattention."  ^^  If,  however, 
we  rank  clearness  as  one  of  the  intensive  attri- 
butes of  sensation,  this  difficulty  is  accounted  for; 
we  can  no  more  define  clearness,  in  the  strict 


184     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

sense  of  definition,  than  we  can  define  intensity 
itself. 

You  will  not  thank  me,  now,  if  I  bring  up  a 
regiment  of  psychologists,  in  single  file,  each  to 
deliver  his  testimony  and  disappear.  I  will  fol- 
low a  less  tedious  method.  Baldwin's  Diction- 
ary disiinguishesiiye  types  of  attentional  theory  ^^ : 
let  us,  then,  find  a  typical  definition  of  attention, 
under  each  one  of  these  five  headings,  and  see 
if  our  emphasis  of  clearness  is  confirmed. 

First  come  the  affectional  theories,  represented 
by  Ribot.  What  is  the  definition.?  ''L'atten- 
tion,"  says  Ribot, "  consiste  en  un  etat  intellectuel, 
exclusif  ou  predominant,"  —  '*est  un  monoide- 
isme  intellectuel,"  —  *'avec  adaptation  spontanee 
ou  artificielle  de  I'individu."  A  monoideism 
with  adaptation  implies,  of  course,  a  good  deal 
more  than  clearness,  but  it  very  certainly  implies 
clearness;  and  we  read  in  Ribot's  text  of  'une 
idee  maitresse,'  *une  representation  vive,'  'un 
etat  de  conscience  devenu  preponderant,'  — 
phrases  in  which  the  reference  becomes  explicit. "° 
The  theories  of  '  psychical  energy '  or  of  '  original 
activity '  come  next  in  order ;  here  we  may  quote 
Ladd.  An  *act  of  attention  in  its  most  highly 
.complex  form'  is  defined  as  "a  purposeful  voli- 
tion, suffused  with  peculiar  feelings  of  effort  or 
strain  and  accompanied  by  a  changed  condition 


ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS     185 

of  the  field  of  discriminative  consciousness,  as 
respects  intensity,  content,  and  clearness."  Later 
on  Ladd  speaks  of  a  "focussing  of  psychical 
energy  upon  some  phases,  or  factors,  or  objects, 
of  consciousness,  and  the  relative  withdrawal  of 
such  energy  from  other  phases,  factors,  objects. "^^ 
So  Stumpf,  while  he  defines  attention  as  a  special 
kind  of  feeling,  *die  Lust  am  Bemerken,'  notes 
that  the  primary  effect  of  attention  is  ''die 
langere  Forterhaltung  [des  bezliglichen  Inhaltes] 
.  .  .  und  die  aufmerksame  Fixirung  wahrend 
dieser  Dauer";  or,  rather,  the  primary  effect  is 
"ein  Bemerken,"  while  the  longer  duration  is 
''ein  selbstverstandliches  Mitergebnis  der  fort- 
gesetzten  Urteilstatigkeiten,  in  welche  der  In- 
halt  verflochten  wird."  ^"  This  Fixirung,  Be- 
merken is,  evidently,  our  'clearness.'  Thirdly, 
we  have  the  'conative'  or  'motor'  theories. 
Stout  says  that  "attention  is  simply  conation 
in  so  far  as  it  finds  satisfaction  in  the  fuller 
presentation  of  its  object,  without  actual  change 
in  the  object." ^^  Baldwin  defines  attention  as 
"the  act  of  holding  a  presentation  before  the 
mind";  it  increases  the  intensity  of  sensation 
and  "the  vividness  of  representative  states. "^^ 
The  next  group,  theories  of  'intensity'  and  're- 
enforcement,'  is  represented  by  Bradley.  "At- 
tention (whatever  it  may  be  besides)  at  any  rate 


186     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

means  predominance  in  consciousness.  .  .  .  Not 
theorising  but  applying  descriptive  metaphors, 
we  may  call  attention  a  state  which  implies  domi- 
nation or  chief  tenancy  of  consciousness.  Or 
we  may  compare  it  to  the  focussing  of  an  optical 
instrument,  or  to  the  area  of  distinct  vision  in 
the  retinal  field."  ^^  Lastly,  for  the  theory  of 
'inhibition,'  we  may  quote  Ferrier.  "Just  as 
we  can  at  will  fix  our  gaze  on  some  one  object 
out  of  many  appealing  to  our  sense  of  vision,  and 
see  this  clearly  while  all  others  are  indistinct  or 
invisible,  so  we  can  fix  our  intellectual  gaze,  or 
concentrate  our  consciousness,  on  some  one  idea 
or  class  of  ideas  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others 
in  the  field  of  intellectual  vision."  ^^ 

You  will  understand  that  I  am  not  here  con- 
cerned with  the  validity  of  the  classification  of 
theories  given  in  the  Dictionary,  or  with  these 
theories  themselves  considered  as  explanations  of 
the  attentive  consciousness,  or  with  the  authors' 
total  descriptions  of  the  state  of  attention.  My 
point  is  simply  this:  that,  wherever  you  look, 
you  find  some  form  of  reference  to  clearness; 
clearness  is,  so  to  say,  the  first  thing  that  men 
lay  hands  on,  when  they  begin  to  speak  about 
attention.  I  do  not  want  to  press  the  point  ad 
nauseam.  I  will  add,  only,  that  if  you  take  the 
quite  recent  books,   those  that  have   appeared 


ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS      187 

since  Pillsbury  completed  his  review,  you  will 
find  just  the  same  thing.  *'Die  Aufmerksam- 
keit,"  says  Ebbinghaus,  "besteht  in  dem  leb- 
haften  Hervortreten  und  Wirksamwerden  ein- 
zelner  seelischer  Gebilde  auf  Kosten  anderer, 
fur  die  gleichwohl  audi  gewisse  Veranlassungen 
des  Zustandekommens  vorhanden  sind."^^  '*The 
fact  that  consciousness  always  has  a  focal  point, 
which  reveals  the  momentary  activity  of  the 
mind,  is  what  is  meant  by  the  fact  of  attention,  so 
far  as  it  can  be  described  in  terms  of  the  content 
of  consciousness";  that  is  Angell's  statement. ^^ 
And  Judd,  though  his  standpoint  is  different 
from  ours,  comes  to  the  same  conclusion.  "The 
word  'attention'  refers  more  especially  to  the 
selective  character  of  the  organising  process, 
whereby  one  particular  group  of  sensory  factors  is 
emphasised  more  than  any  other  group";  "at- 
tention is  merely  a  name  for  various  phases  of 
selective  arrangement  within  experience."  ^^  Em- 
phasis and  selective  arrangement  are,  again,  our 
fact  of  'clearness'  translated  into  systematic 
terms.  Finally,  Meumann  describes  the  '  Grund- 
erscheinung  des  Auf  merksamkeitsvorganges ' 
as  follows :  "in  dem  Masse,  als  einige  bestimmte 
Bewusstseinsinhalte  oder  Tatigkeiten  in  den  Auf- 
merksamkeitszustand  geraten,  haben  diese  ho- 
here  Klarheit,  hoheren  Bewusstseinsgrad,  wer- 


188     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

den  vorlibergehend  der  Mittelpunkt  des  ganzen 
psychischen  Lebens  .  .  .  wahrend  in  demselben 
Masse  der  iibrioje  Bewusstseinsinhalt  in  niederem 
Grade  bewusst  ist  und  seinen  Einfluss  auf  den 
Gang  der  psychischen  Tatigkeit  verliert."^° 

All  this  cataloguing  is  dry  work;  I  can  plead 
only  that  it  was  necessary.  Indeed,  I  may  claim 
your  gratitude  that  there  is  not  more  of  it;  for 
I  have,  myself,  been  obliged  to  turn  up  a  small 
library  of  references,  in  order  to  make  sure  that 
my  position  is  well  taken.  With  that  assurance 
gained,  let  us  proceed  to  the  study  of  clearness 
as  an  attribute  of  sensation.  Under  what  condi- 
tions does  a  sensation  appear  with  maximal 
clearness  in  consciousness  ? 

We  shall  do  best  to  approach  this  question 
empirically,  without  theoretical  bias,  and  without 
attempt  at  a  systematic  classification.  Begin- 
ning in  this  way,  we  find  the  most  obvious  condi- 
tion of  clearness  in  (1)  the  intensity  of  stimulus, 
and  its  sensory  equivalents.  Loud  sounds, 
bright  lights,  strong  tastes  and  smells,  severe 
pressures,  extreme  temperatures,  intense  pains, 
—  all  these  things  are  clear  in  virtue  of  their 
intensity;  they  attract  or  compel  our  attention, 
as  the  phrase  goes,  in  spite  of  ourselves;  they 
force  their  way  to  the  focus  of  consciousness. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  CLEARNEbS       191 

whatever  the  obstacles  that  they  have  to  over- 
come. A  like  value  attaches  to  long  duratioix-- 
and  wide  extensions,  in  so  far  as  these  are  the 
equivalents  of  a  high  degree  of  sensible  intensity. 
The  qualification  is  important,  because  it  reminds 
us  of  the  phenomena  of  adaptation  and  fatigue. 
The  first  really  hot  days  of  summer,  and  the  first 
really  cold  days  of  winter,  constrain  our  atten- 
tion; but  we  soon  grow  accustomed  to  summer 
heat  and  winter  cold.  Enter  a  family  circle, 
one  member  of  which  is  partially  deaf,  and  you 
are  embarrassed  by  the  loudness  of  the  voices; 
but  at  the  end  of  a  week  you  will  cease  to  notice 
anything  unusual.  Tire  yourself  out,  and  a 
stimulus  that  would  ordinarily  attract  your  atten- 
tion passes  unregarded;  under  the  conditions, 
it  is  no  longer  an  intensive  stimulus.  Duration, 
then,  if  it  is  to  mean  clearness,  must  be  the  psy- 
chophysical equivalent  of  intensity,  as  it  is,  e.g., 
in  certain  forms  of  auditory  rhythm. ^^  And  the 
same  thing  holds  of  extension. 

I  said  just  now  that  the  appeal  to  casual  intro- 
spection is  a  confession  of  scientific  weakness, 
and  the  remark  applies  in  the  present  connection. 
We  do  not  know  at  what  average  degree  of  inten- 
sity clearness  makes  its  appearance,  and  we  do 
not  know  within  what  quantitative  limits  the 
psychophysical  equivalence  of  intensity  and  du- 


TENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

188     A 

1     jn,  intensity  and   extension,    obtains.     The 
jneral  dependence  of  clearness  upon  intensity 
of  stimulus  is  an  evident  fact,  but  it  is  a  fact 
that  we  must  leave  in  the  rough. ^" 

It  is  natural  to  pass  from  intensity,  duration, 
and  extension  to  the  quality  of  stimulus.  And  I 
think  it  cannot  be  denied  that  (2)  form  or 
quality  of  stimulus  is  one  of  the  conditions  of 
clearness  of  sensation.  I  gave  some  illustrations 
in  my  first  Lecture.  There  are  certain  pains, 
by  no  means  intensive,  that  are  nevertheless 
urgently,  insistently,  importunately  clear,  — 
pains  that  we  *  cannot  get  away  from'  by  any 
ordinary  distraction  of  attention.  There  are 
certain  organic  complexes,  also,  which  in  my  own 
experience  have  this  power  to  compel  the  atten- 
tion ;  they  are  intimate,  worrying,  wicked  things.* 
The  taste  of  bitter,  the  smell  of  musk,  the  sight 
of  yellow  belong,  for  me,  to  the  same  category; 
the  least  trace  of  them  fascinates  me.  No  doubt, 
there  is  here  a  wide  range  of  individual  differ- 
ence. But  I  cannot  doubt  that  some  sensible 
qualities  are,  intrinsically,  clearer  than  others. 
James  comes  at  least  very  close  to  this  doctrine 

*  My  general  name  for  all  these  experiences  is  '  quick'  —  not  in 
the  sense  of  'fast/  but  in  that  of  'intimately  vital.'  In  my  child- 
hood's speech  'the  quick'  was  the  tender  flesh  beneath  the  finger 
nails,  and  the  wider  use  of  the  term  is  evidently  based  upon  this 
association. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  CLEARNESS       191 

in  his  chapter  on  Instinct,  and  Mliller  in  his  refer- 
ences to  Eindringlichkeit.  "Es  erscheint  mog- 
lich,  class  sich  zwei  Empfindungen,  falls  sie  von 
verschiedener  Qualitat  sind,  hinsichtlich  der 
Eindringlichkeit  anders  zu  einander  verhalten, 
als  hinsichtlich  der  Intensitat.  .  .  .  Man  kann 
zwei  Empfindungen  verschiedener  Qualitat,  z. 
B.  eine  Rotempiindung  und  eine  Grauempfin- 
dung,  zwar  hinsichtlich  ihrer  Eindringlichkeit 
einigermassen  mit  einander  vergleichen,  hat  hin- 
gegen  nicht  in  gleicher  Weise  ein  Urteil  darliber, 
ob  der  Abstand  vom  Nullpunkte  flir  diese  oder 
jene  beider  Empfindungen  grosser  sei. "  Ebbing- 
haus  brings  the  facts  under  the  heading  of  inter- 
est, the  "Gefuhlswert  der  Eindriicke";  but  the 
category  is  evidently  too  large  for  them.^^ 

In  the  third  place  we  may  consider  (3)  the 
temporal  relations  of  stimulus,  and  especially 
repetition  and  suddenness.  A  stimulus  that 
is  repeated  again  and  again  is  likely  to  attract 
the  attention,  even  if  at  first  it  is  altogether  unre- 
marked. Pillsbury  instances  the  case  of  a  man 
absorbed  in  work;  you  may  call  his  name  once, 
and  he  will  not  hear  you,  —  but  call  again  and 
again,  without  raising  your  voice,  and  he  will 
presently  respond.  Experiences  of  this  sort  are 
common  enough,  though  their  analysis  is  not 
quite  easy.     There  is  always  the  possibility,  e.g.. 


192     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

that  the  stimulus  may  operate  at  a  moment  when 
consciousness  is  free,  so  that  it  produces  its  effect 
less  by  sheer  repetition  than  by  suddenness  or 
intensity.  On  the  other  hand,  there  seems  to 
be  no  reason  a  priori  why  summation  of  stimuli 
should  not  be  a  condition  of  clearness.  Ebbing- 
haus  cites,  in  this  connection,  the  fact  of  practice ; 
but  that  is,  surely,  a  phenomenon  of  a  very  differ- 
ent order.  **Der  gelibte  Kliniker  sieht  an  einem 
neuen  Fall,  der  gelibte  Teclmiker  an  einer  neuen 
Maschine  sofort  eine  INIenge  von  ihm  bekannten 
und  gelaufigen  Dingen,  die  der  Ungelibte  erst 
allmahlich  oder  audi  gar  nicht  bemerkt."  But 
the  previous  cases  and  the  older  machines  were 
attentively  examined.  No  amount  of  repeated 
visual  stimuli  would  make  a  surgeon  or  a  tech- 
nician; expert  knowledge  presupposes  attention. 
The  question  here,  however,  is  whether  repeti- 
tion as  such  renders  a  stimulus  clear,  brings  it 
to  the  focus  of  attention.  I  think  that  it  may; 
but  I  should  like  to  have  experimental  proof. 
It  would  also  be  interesting  to  know  at  what 
point  the  summation-effect  gives  way  to  habitua- 
tion, and  whether  habituation  itself  is  ever  pos- 
sible without  foregone  attention.^* 

Sudden  stimuli  and  sudden  changes  of  stimu- 
lus exert  a  familiar  influence  upon  attention.  As 
regards  the  latter.  Stern  tells  us,  "ganz  allgemein. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  CLEARNESS      193 

dass  die  Veranderungserregbarkeit  mit  abneh- 
mender  Geschwindigkeit  abnimmt."  **  Lang- 
same  Veranderungen  sind  weniger  geeignet  als 
schnelle,  .  .  .  eine  Reaction  der  Aufmerksam- 
keit  .  .  .  herbeizufiihren."  The  law  rests  upon 
a  fairly  large  body  of  experimental  results,  ob- 
tained in  various  sense-departments.^^ 

The  mention  of  change  leads  us,  however, 
(4)  to  a  fourth  condition  of  great  moment,  the 
condition  that  Pillsbury  sets  in  the  first  place : 
movement  of  stimulus.  I  quote  a  few  instances 
from  Stumpf.  "Sternschnuppen,  deren  Bild 
auf  seitliche  Netzhautteile  fallt,  werden  doch  in 
Folge  ihrer  raschen  Bewegung  sofort  bemerkt. 
Halt  man  einen  Bleistift  in  solcher  Entfernung 
von  einer  brennenden  Lampe,  dass  sein  Schatten 
auf  einer  weissen  Papierflache  auch  im  directen 
Sehen  eben  nicht  mehr  erkennbar  ist,  so  wird  er 
sofort  wieder  erkennbar,  wenn  man  den  Bleistift 
bewegt.  Beim  Tastsinn  fand  E.  H.  Weber,  dass 
innerhalb  der  sg.  Empfindungskreise,  in  welchen 
gleichzeitige  Beriihrungseindriicke  nicht  mehr 
unterschieden  werden,  doch  Beweguiigen  noch 
leicht  wahrnehmbar  sind."  Movement,  indeed, 
is  a  stimulus  of  such  individuality  that  some 
authors  —  Exner,  e.g.^  —  speak  outright  of  move- 
ment sensations,  and  Heller  and  Stern  distin- 
guish direct  and  indirect  touch,  as  we  all  dis- 


194     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

tinguish  direct  and  indirect  vision,  in  terms  of 
sensitivity  for  resting  and  moving  stimuli.  At  all 
events,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  stimulus 
which  moves  in  the  field  of  vision  or  of  touch  has 
a  remarkable  power  to  draw  the  attention. 

Since  our  classification  is  empirical  only,  we 
may  follow  Stumpf 's  example,  and  include  under 
the  present  rubric  the  phenomena  that  Kiilpe 
describes  as  'partial  tonal  change,'  the  "con- 
tinuous or  discrete  intensive  and  qualitative 
variation  of  a  tone  or  clang  within  a  connection 
of  tones  or  clangs."  A  tone  that  beats,  or  re- 
curs intermittently,  or  fluctuates  in  pitch,  within 
a  chord  or  compound  clang  stands  out  clearly 
from  its  background.  "Everyone  must  have 
noticed  how  strongly  the  attention  is  attracted 
in  a  concert  by  the  voice  which  carries  the 
melody.  The  singer's  voice,  even  if  compara- 
tively weak,  can  be  heard  without  special  effort 
above  a  full  orchestral  accompaniment,  in  pas- 
sages where  it  alone  has  to  rise  and  fall,  to  execute 
trills  and  runs.  .  .  .  The  same  voice  is  obscured 
at  once,  if  it  is  allowed  to  rest  upon  a  single 
note."  ''  — 

We  began  our  list,  naturally  enough,  with  a 
reference  to  the  attributes  and  elementary  rela- 
tions of  stimulus.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  we 
are  breaking  away  from  stimulus.     If  the  *  mov- 


THE  CONDITIONS   OF  CLEARNESS      195 

ing'  tone  can  be  so  named  only  by  analogy  to 
touch  and  sight,  '  movement '  itself  has  a  psycho- 
logical significance  that  extends  far  beyond  its 
formal  definition  in  terms  of  space  and  time. 
And  'suddenness,'  in  the  same  way,  is  more  than 
a  temporal  relation ;  the  sudden  stimulus  is  likely 
to  be  the  surprising,  the  unexpected  stimulus. 
These  remarks  apply,  now,  with  still  greater  force 
to  the  fifth  condition  of  clearness,  —  (5)  the 
novelty,  rarity,  unaccustomedness,  strangeness  of 
stimuli.  The  value  of  this  category  is  not  undis- 
puted. "Ein  ungewohnlicher  Sinnesreiz,"  says 
Mliller,  "muss,  um  in  besonderer  Weise  auf  uns 
zu  wirken,  in  Folge  seiner  Starke  oder  anderer 
Momente  die  sinnliche  Aufmerksamkeit  bereits 
auf  sich  gezogen  haben,  so  dass  er  und  seine 
Neuheit  und  ungewohnliche  Eigenthiimlichkeit 
uns  zur  Wahrnehmung  kommt."  While,  how- 
ever, there  is  truth  in  this  statement,  I  think  that 
the  truth  is  partial.  Novelty  and  unaccustomed- 
ness mean,  in  psychological  terms,  *non-asso- 
ciatedness.'  The  novel  impression  is  the  im- 
pression that  lacks  associative  supplements  in 
consciousness;  that  stands  alone,  in  isolation. 
Such  an  impression,  provided  that  it  is  at  all 
intensive,  seems  to  me  to  become  clear  in  its 
own  right;  it  is  'startling,'  just  as  the  sudden 
stimulus  is  'surprising'  and  the  moving  stimulus 


196     ATTENTION   AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

disturbing.'  For  the  rest,  the  effect  of  novelty 
is  acknowledged  by  James,  Kiilpe,  Ebbinghaus, 
and  Pillsbury.^^ 

A  sixth  condition  of  clearness,  a  condition  of 
the  very  widest  range,  is  (6)  that  described  by 
Ebbinghaus  as  "the  presence  in  consciousness 
of  corresponding,  i.e.  similar  ideas,"  and  by 
Mtiller  —  under  two  separate  headings  —  as  ''the 
likeness  of  the  incoming  sensation  to  the  idea, 
sensation,  or  image  already  present  in  the  mind" 
and  the  "associative  relationship  between  the 
incoming  sensation  and  the  existent  idea,  or 
more  generally  between  the  sensation  and  the 
whole  circle  of  ideas  dominant  at  the  moment." 
The  condition  is  of  great  systematic  importance, 
since,  for  some  psychologists,  it  forms  the  bridge 
that  leads  from  passive  to  active,  from  invol- 
untary to  voluntary  attention.  It  is  also,  as  I 
said,  of  the  very  widest  range;  for  it  covers  all 
cases,  from  precise  duplication,  so  to  say,  of  in- 
coming sensation  by  preexistent  image,  up  to  the 
appeal  of  stimulus  to  a  dominant  psychophysical 
tendency  which,  at  the  time,  may  be  unrepre- 
sented in  consciousness. 

Classical  illustrations  of  the  first  kind  are 
afforded  by  Helmholtz'  experiments  upon  stereo- 
scopic vision  and  the  hearing  of  partial  tones. 
Helmholtz  found  that,  when  the  two  halves  of 


THE  CONDITIONS   OF  CLEARNESS      197 

a  stereoscopic  slide  were  illuminated  in  a  dark 
chamber  by  the  electric  spark,  he  was  able  to 
see  double  images  at  will,  "wenn  ich  mir  vorher 
lebhaft  vorzustellen  suche,  wie  sie  aussehen  miis- 
sen."  So,  in  the  case  of  partial  tones,  he  devised 
a  method  to  ''obtain  a  series  of  gradual  transi- 
tional stages  between  the  isolated  partial  and  the 
compound  tone,  in  which  the  first  is  readily 
retained  by  the  ear.  By  applying  this  process 
I  have  generally  succeeded  in  making  perfectly 
untrained  ears  recognise  the  existence  of  upper 
partial  tones."  Apart  from  these  experimental 
results  we  know  that,  in  everyday  life,  the  man 
who  finds  is  the  man  who  knows  what  to  look 
for;  the  sailor  at  the  masthead,  the  hunter  on 
the  trail,  the  pathologist  at  the  microscope,  are 
all  cases  in  point. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  stand  the  per- 
manent adult  interests,  connate  or  acquired, 
which  —  even  when  not  represented  in  idea  — 
are  ready  to  be  touched  off  by  a  casual  stimulus. 
The  collector,  the  inventor,  the  expert  are  aroused 
to  keen  attention  by  stimuli  which  the  rest  of  the 
world  pass  without  notice.  I  have  already  men- 
tioned the  psychological  attitude,  the  introspec- 
tive habit,  which  so  grows  on  one  with  time  and 
experience  that  at  last  everything  —  novels  and 
games  and  children's  sayings  and  the  behaviour 


108     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

of  an  audience  in  a  lecture-room  —  becomes 
tributary  to  psychology,  and  one  can  no  more 
help  psychologising  than  one  can  help  breath- 
ing. "Some  years  ago,"  Jastrow  writes,  *'I 
became  interested  in  cases  of  extreme  lon- 
gevity, particularly  of  centenarianism,  and  for 
some  months  every  conversation  seemed  to  lead 
to  this  topic,  and  every  magazine  and  news- 
paper offered  some  new  item  about  old  people. 
Nowadays  my  interest  is  transferred  to  other 
themes;  but  the  paragrapher  continues  quite 
creditably  to  meet  my  present  wants,  and  the 
centenarians  have  vanished."  It  is  the  vanishing, 
of  course,  that  is  the  source  of  danger.  If  you 
are  'favourably  impressed'  by  a  scientific  theory, 
the  facts  that  support  the  theory  crowd  in  upon 
you,  while  the  outstanding  facts,  those  that  can- 
not connect  with  the  trend  of  consciousness,  fail 
to  present  themselves ;  you  mean  to  be  impartial, 
and  the  conditions  of  attention  make  you  one- 
sided. I  said,  in  a  previous  Lecture,  that  scien- 
tific theories  sit  more  lightly  upon  their  defenders 
than  opponents  are  apt  to  suppose.*  I  must  add, 
then,  that  this  result  is  secured  by  the  cultivation 
of  the  critical  attitude,  the  scientific  habit  j)ar 
excellence,  which  becomes  as  potent  as  any  other 
in  the  control  of  attention. ^^ 

*  p.  48. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  CLEARNESS      199 

Our  list  of  conditions  has  led  us  from  attributes 
of  stimulus  to  psychophysical  disposition.  We 
might,  possibly,  bring  under  this  latter  head- 
ing (7)  the  accommodation  of  the  organs  of 
sense,  though  I  incline  to  think  that  an  empirical 
classification  would  rank  it  as  a  separate  factor. 
Wundt  gives  fixation  as  one  of  the  external  con- 
ditions of  visual  clearness.  Klilpe  expresses 
himself  more  sceptically.  "We  shall,  perhaps, 
be  more  correct  in  supposing  that  [these  motor 
conditions]  are  only  indirectly  conducive  to  the 
apperception  of  particular  contents,  as  determin- 
ing the  attributes  of  the  contents  themselves." 
But  is  not  clearness  precisely  one  of  these  attri- 
butes.?^ It  is  true  that  the  accidental  conver- 
gence of  the  eyes  upon  some  object  in  the  field  of 
vision,  while  we  are  mentally  occupied  with  other 
things,  does  not  bring  that  object  to  the  focus 
of  consciousness.  Nevertheless,  in  so  far  as  the 
phenomena  of  'fluctuation  of  attention,'  of  which 
we  speak  later,  are  referable  to  peripheral  condi- 
tions, we  must  admit  that  accommodation  of  the 
sense-organ  is  at  least  a  negative  condition  of 
peripheral  clearness. ^^ 

I  come,  finally,  (8)  to  the  much-discussed  cases 
in  w^hich  the  absence  or  cessation  of  stimulus  con- 
strains the  attention.  We  do  not  notice  the 
ticking  of  the  clock  upon  our  wall,  but  we  notice 


200    ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS  . 

its  silence.  We  do  not  notice  the  ordinary 
noises  from  the  street,  but  we  notice  the  unusual 
quiet  after  a  snowfall.  Fechner  gives  some  sa- 
lient instances.  *'  Der  Miiller  erwacht,  wenn  der 
Gang  der  Muhle  stockt,  der  Schlafer  in  der 
Kirche,  wenn  der  Prediger  zu  sprechen,  das  von 
der  Amme  eingesungene  Kind,  wenn  die  Amme 
zu  singen  aufhort,  der  bei  Nachtlicht  zu  schlafen 
Gewohnte,  wenn  das  Nachtlicht  erlischt,  der  im 
Wagen  Fahrende,  wenn  der  Wagen  still  steht." 
How  are  these  effects  to  be  explained  ? 

Notice,  first,  that  they  are  not  simply  instances 
of  the  cessation  of  unnoticed  stimuli.  In  every 
case,  foregone  attention,  and  prolonged  or  fre- 
quent attention,  is  presupposed.  We  do,  e.g., 
attend  to  the  ticking  of  the  clock,  again  and  again, 
in  the  course  of  the  day;  we  hear  it  when  we 
look  up  to  see  the  time,  and  we  hear  it,  with  all 
plainness,  in  intervals  of  thinking  and  reading 
and  writing.  The  miller  is  interested  in  the  run- 
ning of  his  mill ;  he  has  listened,  often  enough, 
to  make  sure  that  things  are  in  good  order. 
The  traveller,  before  he  dozed  off  to  sleep,  was 
made  very  uncomfortable  by  the  jolting  of  the 
coach ;  he  wished  more  than  once  that  he  was  at 
home  in  his  comfortable  bed.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  cessation  of  an  unnoticed  stimulus,  of 
a  stimulus  that  you  have  not  attended  to,  is  not 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  CLEARNESS      201 

necessarily  remarked.  Flowers  may  be  put  upon 
your  mantelpiece,  curtains  hung  across  your  win- 
dows, —  put  in  place,  and  taken  away  again,  — 
without  your  observing  either  their  coming  or 
their  going. 

But  more  than  this :  I  doubt  if  any  really  un- 
noticed stimulus  attracts  the  attention  by  its 
cessation.  The  appeal  to  sleep  is  very  doubtful, 
and  Fechner's  examples  are  general  at  the  best. 
Suppose  that  the  maid  breaks  an  ornament  in 
the  drawing-room,  an  ornament  that  you  have 
long  ago  ceased  to  think  of;  you  do  not  notice 
its  absence.  If  it  was  large,  and  stood  in  a  con- 
spicuous position,  you  are  struck  by  the  novel 
look  of  that  part  of  the  room,  and  you  cast  about 
for  an  explanation.  If  it  was  small  and  incon- 
spicuous, you  do  not  discover  your  loss  until 
some  chance  association  recalls  it  to  mind,  and 
you  search  and  fail  to  find  it. 

Once  more :  if  objective  cessation  may  attract 
the  attention,  subjective  cessation  may  persist 
under  circumstances  that  would  normally  bring 
the  stimulus  to  clear  consciousness.  Delboeuf 
tells  us  that  he  was  once  staying  at  a  country 
house  which  stood  near  a  waterfall.  The  noise 
was  so  great  that,  on  the  first  day  of  his  stay,  he 
was  hardly  able  to  follow  the  conversation  at 
table.     However,  he  soon  grew  accustomed  to  it. 


202     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

Waking  up  one  night,  about  a  week  after  his 
arrival,  he  was  surprised  to  find  that  he  could 
not  hear  the  water,  "meme  en  y  pretant  une  at- 
tention soutenue  ";  only  after  he  had  got  up  and 
looked  out  of  window  did  he  succeed  in  recover- 
ing the  auditory  perception  of  the  fall.  Here  was 
psychophysical  disposition,  but  no  clearness ! 
And  Delboeuf  reminds  us  of  a  very  common  ex- 
perience of  the  same  kind :  the  experience  of 
waking  at  night,  and  listening  for  the  tick  of  the 
clock.  Is  there  anybody  w^ho  has  got  out  of  bed, 
under  these  circumstances,  in  the  assured  con- 
viction that  watch  or  clock  has  stopped  ? 

Evidently,  these  several  cases  must  be  clearly 
distinguished,  and  referred  each  to  its  own  special 
set  of  conditions.  If  we  go  back  to  our  original 
instances,  the  ticking  of  the  clock  and  the  noises 
from  the  street,  it  seems  to  me  that  w^e  notice 
their  cessation,  for  the  most  part,  only  when  we 
are  looking  for  them ;  as  we  glance  towards  the 
clock,  as  we  pause  in  our  work  and  listen  for 
the  familiar  noise,  we  become  aware  of  the  si- 
lence. It  is  not  that  the  absence  of  stimulus 
commands  attention,  but  that  an  expectant  atten- 
tion, a  psychophysical  predisposition,  is  disap- 
pointed, baffled  by  the  silence.  This  view  is 
borne  out  by  the  observation  that  the  clock  may 
have  been  silent  for  a  long  while  before  we  notice 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  CLEARNESS     203 

that  it  has  stopped.  If,  however,  you  think  that 
the  explanation  goes  too  far,  let  us  try  another. 
It  has  been  shown,  experimentally,  that  we  attend 
best  under  a  slight  distraction ;  maximal  clear- 
ness requires  a  little  *  effort,'  as  we  say,  for  its 
attainment.  The  clock  and  the  street  noises 
may  be  considered  as  distractions,  stimulating 
distractions,  of  this  kind.  Their  removal  would 
then,  after  the  current  *  spurt'  of  energy  had 
ceased,  make  itself  felt  as  a  general  restlessness 
or  unsteadiness,  a  widespread  complex  of  organic 
sensations.  I  think  you  will  agree  that  this 
general  restlessness  sometimes  appears,  and  that 
we  work  from  it  to  the  cessation  of  the  familiar 
stimulus;  though  I  myself  do  not  find  it  as  fre- 
quently as  I  find  a  baffled  expectation.  A  third 
and  very  similar  interpretation  derives  from 
Lehmann's  law  of  the  '  indispensableness  of  the 
habitual.'  According  to  that  law,  you  will 
remember,  the  removal  of  an  accustomed  stimulus 
leaves  a  need,  a  Bedilrfnis.  This  comes  to  con- 
sciousness, in  organic  terms,  as  uneasiness  or 
discomfort;  and  again  we  have  a  positive  start- 
ing-point for  the  attention.*" 

We  must  content  ourselves  with  general  ex- 
planations, since  this  little  group  of  facts  has 
never  been  brought  under  experimental  control. 
Indeed,  what  impresses  one  most  strongly,  all 


204     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

through  the  review  which  we  have  now  completed, 
is  the  need  of  detailed  experimental  work.  I  have, 
of  course,  omitted  a  good  many  experimental  ref- 
erences that  I  might  have  given ;  but  those  of  you 
who  know  what  I  have  left  out  will  realise  how 
very  much  more  there  is  that  I  could  not  put  in. 
Even  as  things  are,  however,  there  is  a  ray  of  day- 
light. Just  as  we  found  the  various  theories  of 
attention  held  together  by  the  central  fact  of  clear- 
ness, so  we  find  that  all  these  empirical  conditions 
of  conscious  clearness  may  be  grouped  together 
as  conditions  of  a  powerful  impression  of  the 
nervous  system.  Let  us  look  at  them  in  order. 
Intensive  stimuli  —  and  their  equivalents  in 
space  and  time  —  must,  naturally,  set  up  psycho- 
physical processes  of  relatively  great  strength ; 
and  intensive  excitations  will  not  be  easily  in- 
hibited or  obscured  by  the  other  excitatory  pro- 
cesses of  the  moment.  So  the  qualitative  stimuli 
that  are  effective  for  clearness  must  make  appeal 
to  some  peculiar  susceptibility  of  the  nervous 
system,  general  or  individual.  —  Repeated  stimuli 
produce  a  cumulative  effect,  and  thus  take  their 
place,  as  regards  nervous  excitation,  alongside 
of  intensive.  Sudden  stimuli  impinge  upon  nerv- 
ous elements  that  have  hitherto  been  free  from 
stimulation  of  their  particular  kind,  i.e.  upon 
nervous  elements  of  a  high  degree  of  excitability ; 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  CLEARNESS    205 

and  it  is  probable  that  the  excitations  which  they 
set  up  suffer  less  dispersion  and  diffusion,  within 
the  nervous  system,  than  the  excitations  resulting 
from  gradual  application  of  stimulus.  —  Moving 
stimuli  arouse  different  nervous  elements  in 
quick  succession,  so  that  there  is  no  possibility 
of  fatigue  or  of  sensory  adaptation ;  in  a  sense, 
therefore,  the  effect  of  the  moving  stimulus  is 
cumulative. —  Novel  stimuli  are  isolated  stimuli; 
they  have  neither  to  share  their  effect  with  asso- 
ciates nor  to  hold  their  own  against  rivals. 
The  excitation  set  up  by  the  novel  is  thus  of  the 
same  order  as  that  set  up  by  the  sudden.  —  As 
for  the  effect  of  the  anticipatory  image,  it  is  clear 
that,  the  more  nearly  the  excitation  correlated 
with  the  given  stimulus  coincides  with  a  psycho- 
physical excitation  already  in  progress,  the  more 
easily  will  it  make  its  way  within  the  nervous 
system  and  the  more  dominant  will  it  become. 
And,  in  the  same  way,  excitations  that  coincide 
with  modes  of  excitatory  activity  habitual  to  the 
particular  nervous  system,  excitations  that  are 
in  the  line  of  a  'psychophysical  disposition,' 
will  evidently  have  a  greater  effect  than  others 
that  are  less  accustomed.  —  Lastly,  peripheral 
accommodation  opens  the  gateway  to  the  cortex, 
and  permits  the  stimulus  to  operate  at  its  full 
strength  from  the  first. ^^ 


206     ATTENTION  AS  SENSORY  CLEARNESS 

I  do  not  think  that  it  is  worth  while,  in  an 
elementary  discussion,  to  go  further  into  physio- 
logical theory.  Nor  shall  I  attempt  to  recast  our 
empirical  classification  of  conditions,  and  make  it 
scientific.  The  list  stands  very  much  as  Lotze 
left  it.  It  is  true  that  Lotze  himself,  and  later 
psychologists  from  Wundt  to  Pillsbury,  draw  a 
distinction,  in  more  or  less  definite  lines,  between 
physiological  and  psychological,  external  and  in- 
ternal, objective  and  subjective  conditions.  But 
what  is  external  in  one  system  becomes  internal 
in  another,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  argue  either 
that  all  alike  are  objective  or  that  all  alike  are 
subjective.  All  are  objective,  in  that  they  oper- 
ate by  way  of  the  nervous  system ;  all  are  subjec- 
tive, in  that  the  specific  organisation  of  the  nerv- 
ous system  determines  their  effect.  I  will  only 
suggest,  then,  that  the  common  element  which, 
empirically,  holds  all  the  conditions  together  — 
the  ultimate  condition  of  clearness  at  large  — 
may  be  designated  as  nervous  disposition,  pre- 
disposition of  the  nervous  system  and  its  sensory 
attachments.^^  It  is  the  task  of  genetic  psy- 
chology to  classify  the  determinants  of  attention 
in  the  order  of  time,  as  ordinal,  generic,  individ- 
ual; it  is  the  task  of  experimental  psychology 
to  delimit  and  quantify  their  influence;  and  it 
is  the  task  of  physiology  to  exhibit  the  mechanism 
of  their  nervous  operation. 


I 


VI 

THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 


LECTURE  VI 

THE   LAWS   OF   ATTENTION:   I 

MY  last  Lecture  was,  in  effect,  a  plea  for  a  sim- 
plification of  the  psychology  of  attention. 
Kiilpe  tells  us,  in  his  Grundriss,  that  psycholo- 
gists have  tended  to  find  "the  real  object  of  in- 
vestigation into  the  psychology  of  space,  not  in  the 
spatial  attributes,  but  in  the  spatial  relations.  .  .  . 
The  result  has  been  an  almost  total  neglect  of  the 
perception  of  extension  and  figure,  and  an  al- 
most exclusive  regard  of  the  perception  of  dis- 
tance and  position.'*  And  he  remarks  further 
that,  in  the  psychology  of  time,  ''interval  has 
been  given  the  preference  over  duration  with  as 
perplexing  results  as  follow  from  the  preference 
of  distance  over  extension  in  the  psychology  of 
space."  ^  I  believe  that  much  of  our  diflSculty 
in  the  psychology  of  attention  arises,  in  the  same 
way,  from  our  concessions  to  tradition  and  to 
practical  demands;  and  that  we  should  do  well 
to  sit  down  in  serious  earnest  to  a  psychology  of 
clearness,  —  considering  clearness  as  an  attri- 
bute of  sensation,  conditioned  upon  nervous 
predisposition,  just  exactly  as  quality  is  an  attri- 
p  209 


210  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

bute  of  sensation,  conditioned  upon  nervous 
differentiation.  How  far  this  elementary  psy- 
chology of  attention  could  be  carried  it  is,  evi- 
dently, impossible  to  predict;  but  the  number 
of  experimental  problems  suggested  by  the  pre- 
ceding Lecture  shows  that  there  are  many  and 
definite  points  of  attack. 

However,  a  science  does  not  advance  accord- 
ing to  any  prearranged  logical  plan,  but  haltingly 
and  unevenly,  as  the  interests  of  individual 
workers  prompt,  or  the  claims  of  practical  utility 
dictate.  And  the  experimental  psychology  of 
attention  centres,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  about  some 
half-dozen  large  problems,  —  in  part  relatively 
new,  in  part  handed  down  from  the  empirical 
psychology  of  the  eighteenth  century,  —  which 
have  been  discussed  again  and  again,  to  the  neg- 
lect of  other  and  equally  important  questions. 
We  are  still  inclined  to  speak,  not  of  '  the '  experi- 
mental psychology  of  attention,  but  of  Wundt's 
or  Stumpf's  or  James'  or  Muller's  views  upon 
attention.  I  shall  not  attempt,  now,  to  lay  out 
an  ideal  programme  for  further  work;  the  at- 
tempt would  be  overbold,  and  the  programme 
would  not  be  followed.  I  desire  rather  to  review 
what  we  know,  what  has  already  been  done ;  and 
I  shall  therefore  treat  the  elementary  psychology 
of   attention   topically,   under  those   half-dozen 


CLEARNESS  AS  SENSATION  ATTRIBUTE  211 

headings.  For  the  sake  of  clearness,  1  shall 
throw  each  headmg  into  the  form  of  a  law,  a 
general  statement  of  the  behaviour  of  conscious 
contents  given  in  the  state  of  attention.  But 
the  statement  is  not  to  be  understood  dogmati- 
cally, for  we  shall  be  largely  occupied  with  argu- 
ments and  results  that  make  against  its  universal 
validity;  the  *law'  is  rather  a  challenge,  an 
appeal  to  the  bar  of  fact. 

My  first  *law,'  in  this  sense  of  the  term,  runs 
as  follows:  (1)  clearness  is  an  attribute  of  sensa- 
tion, which,  within  certain  limits,  may  be  varied 
independently  of  the  other  concurrent  attributes. 
What  are  the  facts  ? 

In  the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the 
independent  status  of  clearness  as  sensation- 
attribute.  As  Wundt  says:  *'Klarheit  und 
Starke  der  Eindrlicke  sind  durchaus  voneinander 
verschieden " ;  "das  Klarer-  und  das  Starker- 
werden  eines  Eindrucks  sind  .  .  .  subjectiv  wohl 
zu  unterscheidende  Vorgange."  ^  There  are,  in 
my  experience,  very  few  departments  of  psy- 
chological observation  in  which  the  distinction 
of  clearness  from  the  other  attributes  of  mental 
processes  offers  appreciable  difficulty. 

Nevertheless,  independent  status  does  not 
necessarily  mean  independent  variability.     It  is 


212  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

true  that  most  sensible  qualities  may  be  present 
at  any  degree  of  clearness ;  but,  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  the  rule  is  not  universal,  —  there  are 
qualities  that  appear  to  be  bound  up  with  a 
determinate  clearness,  or  at  any  rate  to  admit  of 
only  a  very  narrow  range  of  clearness-degree. 
And  when  we  turn  to  intensity,  we  are  upon  de- 
batable ground  from  the  start.  Is  clearness  ever 
independent  of  intensity  ?  or,  in  popular  phrase, 
do  we  ever  attend  to  a  sensation  without  thereby 
making  it  stronger  ? 

You  will  find  all  sorts  of  opinion :  that  atten- 
tion intensifies  sensation,  that  attention  leaves 
sensible  intensity  unaffected,  that  attention  re- 
duces the  intensity  of  sensation.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  trend  of  psychological  belief  just 
now  seems  to  favour  an  interdependence  of  the 
two  attributes.  Pillsbury,  who  devotes  a  good 
part  of  his  first  chapter  to  a  balancing  of  the  evi- 
dence, pro  and  con,  ends  with  a  no7i  liquet:  "il 
semble  done  que  cette  discussion  sur  les  rapports 
entre la clarte  et  Tintensite  reste  sans  conclusion."^ 
I  think,  though,  that  his  own  leanings  —  if  one 
may  presume  to  read  between  the  lines  —  are 
towards  a  coupling  of  the  two  attributes,  at  least 
within  certain  limits.  This  is  also  Kiilpe's  view 
in  the  Grundriss.  "  Within  certain  narrow  limits, 
.  .  .  contents  are  really  intensified  in  the  state 


CLEARNESS  AND  INTENSITY  213 

of  attention."  ''The  sensation  of  a  loud  sound, 
inattentively  experienced,  may  seem  equal  .  .  . 
to  that  of  a  faint  sound,  attentively  experienced. 
Again,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  alteration 
of  judgment  by  inattentive  observation  is  al- 
ways precisely  the  same  as  the  alteration  produced 
by  a  reduction  of  the  intensive,  spatial,  or  tem- 
poral values  of  the  impressions,  except  that  it  is 
somewhat  more  uncertain.  .  .  .  This  fact  re- 
quires further  investigation."  ^  Wundt  writes, 
to  the  same  effect,  ''dass  beide  [Eigenschaften] 
einen  gewissen  Einfluss  auf  einander  aussern 
konnen.  ...  So  bemerkt  man,  wenn  ein  Reiz 
das  Bewusstsein  bei  grosser  Unaufmerksamkeit 
trifft  und  dann  in  gleicher  Starke  wiederholt  wird, 
wie  z.  B.  beim  unerwarteten  Stundenschlag  einer 
Thurmuhr,  dass  der  zweite  Eindruck  entschieden 
nicht  bloss  deutlicher,  sondern  scheinbar  auch 
intensiver  wahrgenommen  wird.  Das  namliche 
zeigt  sich,  wenn  man  sich  willklirlich  anstrengt, 
Erinnerungs-  und  Phantasiebilder  zu  erwecken 
und  moglichst  intensiv  im  Bewusstsein  festzu- 
halten."  ^  Ebbinghaus  admits  that  the  experi- 
mental evidence  is  doubtful,  but  argues,  from 
general  experience,  that  "eine  allgemeinen  Erho- 
hung  der  Empfindungsstarke  durch  Zuwendung 
der  Aufmerksamkeit  durchaus  wahrscheinlich 
ist."    He  gives  the  illustrations  that  Wundt  had 


214  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

given  before  him :  the  varying  intensity  of  the  bell 
strokes,  heard  with  attention  and  with  inatten- 
tion, and  the  hallucinatory  character  of  images  in 
a  state  of  sustained  and  concentrated  attention.^ 
Pillsbury  and  Ebbinghaus  both  reply  to  the  ob- 
jection that  an  intensifying  effect  of  attention 
would  falsify  our  perceptions,  would  jeopardise 
the  validity  of  Weber's  Law.  Pillsbury  suggests 
that  the  increase  of  intensity  is  not  absolute,  not 
the  addition  of  a  constant  amount,  but  relative, 
proportional  to  the  intrinsic  intensity  of  the 
stimulus;  and  Ebbinghaus  points  out  that  nor- 
mal intensity  is,  after  all,  intensity  in  the  state  of 
attention.  *'  [Es]  beziehen  sich  alle  genaueren 
Angaben  tiber  Empfindungen,  tiber  ihre  Eigen- 
schaf ten.  Sell wellenwerte  U.S.  w.,  .  .  .  durchweg 
auf  eine  erhohte  ihnen  zugewandte  Aufmerk- 
samkeit.  Verschiedenheiten  aber,  die  nun  noch 
etwa  durch  verschiedene  Grade  einer  solchen  er- 
hohten  Aufmerksamkeit  hervorgebracht  werden 
konnten,  werden  als  unerheblich  betrachtet  wer- 
den durfen."  My  impression  is  that  views  of  this 
sort  are  gaining  ground  in  psychology,  as  against, 
e.g.,  Stumpf's  doctrine  that  only  weak  sensations 
are  intensified  by  attention.  Stumpf,  you  will 
remember,  looks  at  the  operation  of  attention 
from  the  negative  side ;  the  weak  sensation  rises, 
by  the  removal  of  counter-influences  within  the 


CLEARNESS  AND  INTENSITY  215 

nervous  system,  to  the  full  (or  approximately  the 
full)  intensity  which  it  would  have  possessed  in 
its  own  right  had  those  adverse  influences  been 
absent.^  However,  I  will  quote  an  authority  on 
the  opposite  side.  **[Eine]  verstarkende  Funk- 
tion  der  Aufmerksamkeit,"  says  Miinsterberg, 
"giebt  es  nicht;  neuere  Experimente  bestatigen 
die  schlichte  Erfahrung,  auf  die  schon  Fechner 
hinwies,  dass  ein  graues  Papier  an  der  Stelle, 
der  sich  die  Aufmerksamkeit  zuwendet,  nicht 
heller  erscheint ;  das  schw^ache  Licht  w4rd  nicht 
intensiver,  ein  Gewicht  nicht  schwerer,  eine  Linie 
nicht  langer,  ein  Ton  nicht  lauter,  wenn  unsere 
Aufmerksamkeit  die  Vorstellung  erfasst."^  Miin- 
sterberg's  statement  is  in  flat  disagreement  with 
those  which  I  have  just  been  reading. 

Experiment  must  decide;  but  direct  experi- 
ment is  very  difiicult.  Let  me  remind  you  of 
an  historical  incident  which  has  always  seemed 
to  me  to  be  characteristic  for  psychology  at  large, 
and  —  if  looked  at  in  the  right  way  —  encourag- 
ing to  the  student  of  psychology.  Mach  and 
Stumpf  sat  down  together  before  a  harmonium, 
in  the  physical  laboratory  at  Prague,  to  decide 
the  question  whether  attention  to  one  of  the  com- 
ponent tones  in  an  ordinary  musical  chord  does 
or  does  not  strengthen  that  particular  tone.  The 
chord  was  sounded,  and  the  two  men  listened. 


216  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

''Wiihrend  Mach  die  Verstarkung  ganz  deutlich 
zu  horen  angab,"  says  Stumpf,  who  tells  the 
story,  *'konnte  ich  nichts  davon  finden."  *'So- 
viel  ist  sicher,  dass  bei  ganz  unveranderten  Um- 
standen  eine  Verstarkung  starker  Tone  neben 
anderen  gleichzeitigen  starken  Tonen  fur  mich 
nicht  wahrnehmbar  ist,  wahrend  Mach  sie  auch 
dann  wahrzunehmen  erklixrt."  And  he  con- 
cludes, resignedly,  that  individuals  differ.®  I 
do  not  know  about  the  individual  differences: 
but  I  call  the  observation  characteristic,  because 
it  may  stand  as  a  typical  instance  of  divergent 
introspections ;  and  I  call  it  encouraging,  because 
the  student  may  take  heart  from  it  to  hold  by  his 
own  introspective  conviction  on  unsettled  points. 
No  doubt,  both  Mach  and  Stumpf  heard  what 
they  say  they  heard.  *No  doubt,'  I  say,  though 
I  myself  cannot  hear  as  Mach  hears.  But  since 
we  have,  in  science,  to  pass  beyond  individual 
experience,  the  direct  method  must  be  given  up 
for  an  indirect ;  we  must  seek  to  arrange  condi- 
tions in  such  a  way  that  the  introspective  dis- 
crepancies disappear. 

The  experiments  made  by  the  method  of 
distraction  are  exceedingly  interesting.^^  But 
though  they  are  not  very  numerous,  I  cannot  here 
attempt  to  review  them.  Criticism  of  opinion 
may  be   condensed   into   relatively  few  words; 


CLEARNESS  AND  INTENSITY  217 

criticism  of  experimental  method  needs  time  and 
detail.  I  will  rather  give  you  a  brief  account  of 
experiments  recently  carried  out  in  the  Cornell 
Laboratory  by  my  colleague  Professor  Bentley,^^ 
—  experiments  which  point  quite  definitely  to 
the  positive  conclusion  that,  even  in  the  case  of 
strong  stimuli,  attention  has  an  intensifying 
effect.  The  stimuli,  which  were  presented  in 
pairs,  were  the  sounds  produced  by  the  ordinary 
gravity  phonometer.  To  the  one  stimulus  of 
each  pair,  the  observer  was  maximally  attentive ; 
from  the  other  he  was  distracted.  The  distrac- 
tion was  effected  by  means  of  odours,  which  we 
had  found  in  previous  investigations  to  be  su- 
perior to  such  things  as  counting,  adding,  mul- 
tiplying, etc.  Suppose,  then,  that  two  sounds,  a 
weaker  and  a  stronger,  are  given ;  and  that  the 
weaker  is  the  sound  attended  to,  the  stronger  the 
sound  distracted  from.  If  the  observer  judges 
the  two  sounds  to  be  of  equal  intensity,  still  more 
if  he  judges  that  the  objectively  weaker  sound  is 
the  more  intensive  of  the  two,  we  have  an  over- 
estimation  of  intensity  in  the  state  of  attention. 
Out  of  300  preliminary  experiments,  285 
were  successful.  Of  these  285  judgments,  136 
showed  an  overestimation  of  the  stimulus  attended 
to,  40  showed  an  underestimation  of  that  stimulus, 
and  109  reported  the  relation  of  the  two  stimuli 


\ 


218  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

correctly.  Further  experiments  came  out  in  the 
same  way.  And  experiments  with  two  pairs  of 
intensive  stimuli,  weak  and  loud,  which  might  be 
supposed  —  under  Weber's  Law  —  to  measure 
equal  sense-distances,  gave  almost  identical  re- 
sults ;  the  overestimations  wdth  the  loud  stood 
to  the  overestimations  with  the  weak  stimuli  in 
the  ratio  39  to  40.  Pillsbury's  conjecture  is  thus 
confirmed.  Lastly,  it  was  found  that  the  per- 
centage of  *  right  cases '  with  distraction  was  prac- 
tically the  same  as  that  with  continuous  atten- 
tion. Puzzling  at  first,  this  result  becomes  clear 
if  we  remember  that  the  error  of  distraction  would 
operate  as  often  to  increase  as  to  decrease  the 
differences  of  sensible  intensity ;  so  that  its  effect 
must  appear  rather  in  the  distribution  than  in 
the  number  of  incorrect  judgments,  rather  under 
the  headings  of  overestimation  and  underesti- 
mation than  in  the  column  of  wrong  cases. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  strong  as  well  as  weak 
sounds  are  intensified  by  attention,  or,  if  you 
prefer  the  negative  statement,  are  reduced  in 
intensity  by  distraction.  What  this  precisely 
means,  physiologically  and  psychologically,  it  is 
at  present  impossible  to  say.  Professor  Bentley's 
observers  certainly  did  not  confuse  intensity  with 
clearness;  and  the  intervention  of  reproductive 
or  affective  influences  seems  to  be  ruled  out  both 


CLEARNESS  AS  SENSATION  ATTRIBUTE  219 

by  the  conditions  of  the  experiments  and  by  the 
introspections.  So  far  as  they  go,  the  results 
tell  directly  for  what  I  have  called  the  current 
psychological  view  of  the  relations  of  intensity 
and  clearness. — 

What,  then,  of  our  law  ?  Why,  the  law  stands, 
under  the  conditions  and  with  the  limitations  of 
which  w^e  have  spoken.  Clearness  is  an  inde- 
pendent attribute  of  sensation.  It  is  also,  in 
some  measure,  an  independently  variable  attri- 
bute. It  may  vary  in  entire  independence  of 
most  sensible  qualities;  it  may  vary  also  inde- 
pendently of  intensity,  in  the  sense  that  a  very 
weak  sound  may  be  as  clear  as  a  very  loud  sound. 
Only  it  seems  bound  up  with  intensity  to  the 
extent  that  change  of  clearness  involves  always 
a  change  of  intensity  as  well;  very  weak  clear 
sounds  are  not  as  weak  as  they  would  be  at  a 
lower  degree  of  clearness.  How  far  the  converse 
of  this  statement  is  true,  within  w^hat  limits  a 
change  of  intensity  brings  with  it,  normally,  a 
change  of  clearness,  cannot  be  said,  though  the 
correlation  probably  extends  beyond  those  ex- 
tremes of  intensive  stimulation  which  we  dis- 
cussed in  the  preceding  Lecture.  I  may  add 
that  there  is  nothing  surprising,  from  the  psy- 
chophysical point  of  view,  in  an  intimate  relation 
between  clearness  and  intensity;    all  the  condi- 


220  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

tions  of  maximal  clearness  are  also,  as  you  will 
remember,  conditions  for  the  powerful  impres- 
sion of  the  nervous  system. 

I  turn,  in  the  second  place,  to  the  law  which  I 
have  named  —  and  the  name  shows  my  own  bias 
and  opinion  —  (2)  the  law  of  the  two  levels.  It  is 
generally  agreed  that  increased  clearness  of  any 
one  part-contents  of  consciousness  implies  the 
decreased  clearness  of  all  the  rest ;  the  '  energy 
of  attention,'  as  we  say,  is  limited  and  practically 
constant.  So  the  question  arises :  how  many 
levels  or  degrees  of  clearness  may  coexist  in  the 
same  consciousness  ? 

Opinions  are  widely  divergent.  Baldwin,  e.g., 
gives  in  his  Senses  and  Intellect  a  *  graphic  repre- 
sentation of  area  of  consciousness,  after  analogy 
with  vision,'  in  which  no  less  than  four  levels  are 
distinguished.  At  the  very  centre  of  conscious- 
ness stands  apperception.  Beyond  that  lies 
active  consciousness  or  attention ;  beyond  that, 
again,  passive  or  diffused  consciousness ;  and  be- 
yond that,  the  subconscious.  The  whole  series 
of  concentric  circles  is  then  enclosed  by  the  un- 
conscious or  physiological,  a  region  of  uncertain 
boundary.  "It  is  well,"  Baldwin  says,  "to  note 
the  play  of  ideas  through  all  these  forms  of  transi- 
tion, from  the  dark  region  of  subconsciousness. 


THE  TWO   LEVELS  221 

to  the  brilliant  focus  of  attention  [i.e.,  to  apper- 
ception]. Images  pass  both  ways  constantly, 
acting  varyingly  upon  one  another  and  making 
up  the  wonderful  kaleidoscope  of  the  inner  life."  ^^ 
There  is  no  question  that  images  pass  through  a 
large  number  of  degrees  of  clearness  —  certainly 
many  more  than  four  —  in  their  passage  from 
maximal  to  minimal  attention;  the  question  is, 
however,  whether  they  show  all  these  degrees 
within  a  single  consciousness. 

Angell  seems  to  accept  Baldwin's  view  in  this 
strict  interpretation.     "The  field  of  conscious- 
ness," he  says,  **  is  apparently 
like  the  visual  field.     There 
is  always  a  central  point  of 
which    we  are  momentarily 
more  vividly  conscious  than 
of    anything    else.      Fading 
gradually    away    from    this 
point  into  vaguer  and  vaguer     y^^  5  Ir~ea  ^Conscious- 
consciousness*  is   a  margin  ^^^^-  ~  '^-    ^^-    Baldwin, 

^  Handbook     of     Psychology: 

of  objects,   or  ideas,  of  which    Senses    and    Intellect,    1890, 

we  are   aware   in   a  sort  of 

mental  indirect  vision."  ^^     Baldwin's  diagram 

is  printed  in  illustration. 

Kiilpe  takes  the  opposite  standpoint.     He  be- 
gins his  article  on  The  Problem  of  Attention  by 

*  Italics  mine. 


222  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

contrasting  physiological  with  psychological  clear- 
ness. "[As  I  sit]  looking  at  the  flowered  pattern 
of  the  paper  on  the  wall  in  front  of  me,  ...  I 
notice  that  around  the  spot  of  clearest  vision  the 
pattern  loses  in  clearness,  at  first  slowly,  then 
more  and  more  quickly,  until  I  reach  the  limit  of 
my  field  of  vision,  and  cannot  make  out  any  pat- 
tern whatsoever.  If  I  did  not  know  that  the 
whole  wall  is  covered  with  the  same  paper,  I 
should  suppose  that  the  paper-hanger  had  chosen 
less  and  less  pronounced  patterns,  the  farther  he 
moved  from  the  point  upon  which  my  eyes  are 
fixed,  until  finally  all  pattern  and  colour  were  lost 
in  an  indifferent  gray."  I  must  interject  here 
that  I  cannot,  personally,  verify  the  details  of 
this  observation ;  I  think  that  Klilpe  has  read 
into  the  wall-paper  a  good  deal  of  his  own  know- 
ledge of  sense-psychology.  But,  at  any  rate, 
he  refers  the  observation  itself  to  physiology, 
and  does  not  use  the  analogy  as  Baldwin  and 
Angell  use  it.  On  the  contrary,  he  writes  of  the 
attentive  consciousness  as  follows:  "When  we 
ask  how  the  degrees  of  consciousness  are  related 
to  one  another,  we  find,  not  an  uniform  grada- 
tion from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  but,  in  most 
cases,  a  fairly  sharp  line  of  distinction.  Certain 
contents  stand  at  the  level  of  clear  apprehension ; 
and  from  them  our  consciousness  drops  away. 


THE  TWO   LEVELS  223 

without  transition,  to  the  level  of  obscure  general 
impression,  above  which  the  other  contents  of 
the  time  are  unable  to  rise.  And  the  clearer  the 
first  group  of  contents,  the  more  indistinct  are 
all  the  rest.  ...  If,  therefore,  at  any  given 
moment  we  make  a  cross-section  of  the  stream  of 
consciousness,  we  shall  find  represented  on  it, 
not  all  conceivable  degrees  of  clearness,  but  as  a 
rule  just  two  groups  of  processes  separated  from 
each  other  by  a  considerable  interval."  The 
statements  are  cautious;  Kulpe  puts  in  the 
qualifying  'in  most  cases,'  'as  a  rule';  but  the 
caution  is  plainly  due  to  the  lack  of  experimental 
evidence,  and  cannot  obscure  the  writer's  own 
opinion.^* 

Six  years  earlier,  Kulpe  had  argued  in  a  similar 
spirit  against  Kohn.  "Die  Klarheit  und  die  Un- 
klarheit  wachsen  in  entgegengesetzter  Richtung, 
und  die  Zustande,  die  ihnen  entsprechen,  konnen 
somit  um  so  leichter  voneinander  unterschieden 
werden,  je  ausgepragter  die  Aufmerksamkeit  ist. 
Diese  Erscheinung  zwingt  uns  geradezu  statt  von 
einer  einformigen  quantitativen  Abstufbarkeitdes 
Bewusstseins  von  zwei  gesonderten  Zustanden 
desselben  zu  reden."  Kiilpe  distinguishes  here 
also  between  physiological  and  psychological 
distribution  of  clearness. ^^ 

Ward  posits  three  grades  of  consciousness  in 


224  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

the  wide  sense :  "a  centre  or  focus  of  conscious- 
ness within  a  wider  field,  any  part  of  which  may 
at  once  become  the  focus,"  and  a  third  grade  of 
*  subconsciousness.'  This  subconsciousness  is, 
however,  literally  sub-conscious.  The  threshold 
of  consciousness  **must  be  compared  to  the 
surface  of  a  lake,  and  subconsciousness  to  the 
depths  beneath  it."  "Presentations  in  sub- 
consciousness have  not  the  power  to  divert 
attention,  nor  can  we  voluntarily  concentrate 
attention  upon  them."  " This  hypothesis  of  sub- 
consciousness ...  is  in  the  main  nothing  more 
than  the  application  to  the  facts  of  presentation 
of  the  law  of  continuity."  ^^  Consciousness  has, 
then,  not  three  experienceable  levels,  but  two 
only;  Ward's  subconscious  presentations  are 
simply  Fechner's  negative  sensations. ^^  Mar- 
shall, if  I  understand  him  aright,  inclines  to  go 
a  little  farther.  "In  the  moment  of  reflection," 
he  says,  "we  find  in  all  cases  what  have  been 
called  the  fields  of  Attention  and  of  Inattention. 
We  find  them  and  nothing  more."  Neverthe- 
less, "the  field  of  inattention  seems  to  resolve 
itself  into  an  aura,  as  it  were,  which  aura  has 
now  a  'feel'  of  being  fuller,  and  now  of  being 
narrower.  .  .  .  The  observation  that  this  aura 
at  times  seems  to  be  fuller,  and  again  narrower, 
surely  points  to  the  existence  of  something  psy- 


THE  TWO  LEVELS  225 

chic  beyond  either  the  fields  of  attention  or  of 
inattention,  points  to  the  existence  of  mentality 
out  of  which  consciousness  whether  of  attention 
or  of  inattention  arises."  ^^  I  do  not  find  that 
Marshall  is  more  logical  than  Ward,  —  though 
he  does  not  follow  Ward's  example  of  including 
in  consciousness  what  is  by  definition  below  the 
level  of  consciousness,  —  for  a  '  feel '  of  fulness 
and  narrowness  must  be  a  conscious  feel,  and 
observation  of  the  feel  must  be  introspective 
observation.  However,  both  Ward  and  Mar- 
shall are  arguing  theoretically :  Ward  for  the  law 
of  continuity  and  Marshall  for  a  form  of  psycho- 
physical parallelism ;  they  are  not  directly  facing 
our  present  problem. 

Helmholtz,  who  does  face  that  problem  in  a 
particular  case,  afl&rms  that  **wir  fur  das  Be- 
wusstwerden '  einer  Empfindung  zwei  verschie- 
dene  Arten  oder  Grade  unterscheiden  mussen," 
the  kinds  or  degrees  which  Leibniz  named  per- 
ception and  apperception.^^  And  this  is,  of 
course,  the  doctrine  that  we  also  associate  with 
the  name  of  Wundt.  Indeed,  the  representa- 
tion of  consciousness  in  two  levels,  clear  and 
obscure,  is  so  characteristic  of  Wundt's  psy- 
chology that  I  think  we  sometimes  tend  to  credit 
him  with  its  invention,  —  just  as  we  credit  him 
with  the  metaphor  of  the  Blickfeld  and  the  Blick- 


226  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

punkt,  although  Wundt,  I  suppose,  took  that 
from  Fortlage,  and  Fortlage  may  have  taken  it 
from  Lotze,  and  Lotze  from  some  earlier  writer ; 
for  it  goes  back  at  least  as  far  as  Tucker  !  ^^  The 
metaphor  itself,  with  its  direct  implication  of 
the  two  staores  of  consciousness,  stands  in  1874 
at  the  very  beginning  of  Wundt's  section  on  at- 
tention, and  in  1903  stands  second  only  to  the 
ThdtigkeitsgeJiXhl?^  '*Sagen  wir  von  den  in 
einem  gegebenen  Moment  gegenwartigen  Vor- 
stellungen,  sie  befanden  sich  im  Blickfeld  des 
Bewusstseins,  so  kann  man  denjenigen  Theil  des 
letzteren,  dem  die  Aufmerksamkeit  zugekehrt  ist, 
als  den  inneren  Blickpunkt  bezeichnen.  .  .  . 
Der  innere  Blickpunkt  kann  sich  nun  successiv 
den  verschiedenen  Theilen  des  inneren  Blick- 
feldes  zuwenden.  Zugleich  kann  er  sich  jedoch, 
verschieden  von  dem  Blickpunkt  des  ausseren 
Auges,  verengern  und  erweitern,  wobei  immer 
seine  Helligkeit  abwechselnd  zu-  und  ab- 
nimmt.  ...  Je  enger  und  heller  hierbei  der 
Blickpunkt  ist,  in  um  so  grosserem  Dunkel  be- 
findet  sich  das  tibrige  Blickfeld."  This  is  fa- 
miliar teaching.  It  must  be  taken  in  connection 
with  Wundt's  refusal  to  grant  any  psycho- 
logical place  to  the  subconscious  or  the  uncon- 
scious. He  freely  admits  the  influence  of  feeling 
on  the  course  of  ideational  association,  but  he 


THE  TWO   LEVELS  227 

will  not  allow  the  feeling  to  stand  alone  in  con- 
sciousness, the  counterpart  of  an  *  unconscious ' 
idea.  The  fact  is  rather  '*dass  die  betreffende 
Vorstellung  im  Bewusstsein  vorhanden  sei,  dass 
sie  aber  zu  jenen  dunkleren  Inhalten  desselben 
gehorte,  die  uberhaupt  mehr  durch  ihre  Wirkung- 
en  auf  andere  Bewusstseinsvorgange  als  durch 
ihre  eigenen  Bestandtheile  erkennbar  werden."  ^^ 
Hamilton's  doctrine  of  'mediate  association'  — 
"one  idea  mediately  suggests  another  into  con- 
sciousness, the  suggestion  passing  through  one 
or  more  ideas  which  do  not  themselves  rise  into 
consciousness" — is  treated  in  the  same  way. 
**Man  hat  wohl  ein  Recht  von  '  unbemerkten ' 
oder  von  *dunkler  bewussten'  Mittelgliedern 
solcher  Associationen  zu  sprechen,  nimmermehr 
aber  von  *unbewussten.'"  ^^  And  Herbart  fares 
in  like  manner :  "  es  gibt  keine  '  f  rei  auf  steigende ' 
Vorstellungen."  ^^ 

Morgan,  as  we  all  know,  gives  a  prominent 
place  in  his  psychology  to  the  distinction  be- 
tween 'focus'  and  'margin'  of  consciousness. 
"In  any  moment,  .  .  .  there  are,  in  addition  to 
and  alongside  the  dominant  elements  constituting 
the  summit  of  full  clear  consciousness,  dimly  felt 
elements  which  may  have  little  or  no  direct  con- 
nection with  those  dominant  elements.  These 
we  will  speak  of  as  subconscious,''''  ^^  —  a  quite 


228  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

unnecessary  term,  since  for  Morgan  the  processes 
in  question  are  all  conscious.  **  Directly  we 
begin  to  examine  and  measure  any  part  of  the 
margin,"  he  says,  "it  thereby  ceases  to  be  mar- 
ginal and  becomes  focal;"  but  we  cannot  exam- 
ine and  measure  the  subconscious.  You  will 
have  been  wondering,  too,  why  I  have  not  men- 
tioned James'  chapter  on  the  Stream  of  Thought.^^ 
I  have  omitted  it,  because  I  think  that  it  belongs 
to  another  part  of  our  subject,  to  which  I  come 
in  a  moment. 

I  do  not  know,  now,  how  the  *law  of  the  two 
levels'  is  to  be  put  to  any  conclusive  test.  If 
Baldwin  and  Angell  find  their  three  degrees  of 
consciousness  below  the  apperceptive  level,  and 
if  Marshall  finds  his  aura  below  the  second  level, 
of  obscure  consciousness,  I  can  only  fall  back 
upon  Stumpf's  'individual  differences'  and  envy 
those  whose  minds  are  richer  than  my  own, 
I  find  nothing  of  the  sort.  Working  from  the 
other  end,  from  the  level  of  clear  apprehension, 
I  am  accustomed  to  use  the  following  illustra- 
tion. Take  one  of  the  familiar  puzzle  pictures, 
a  picture  which  represents,  we  will  say,  a  house 
and  garden,  and  somewhere  in  which  is  concealed 
the  outline  of  a  human  face.  As  you  search 
for  the  face,  the  contents  of  the  whole  picture  are 
at  the  conscious  focus.     Suddenly  you  find  it: 


THE  TWO  LEVELS  229 

and  what  happens  ?  Why,  as  you  do  so,  the 
picture  drops  clean  away  from  the  focus;  the 
face  stands  out  with  all  imaginable  clearness, 
and  the  house  and  garden  are  no  clearer  than  the 
feel  of  the  paper  between  your  fingers.  The  ex- 
perience is  very  striking,  as  I  have  described  it; 
it  is  more  striking  still  if  the  face  baffles  you, 
and  you  go  off  on  false  scents.  For  every  time 
that  you  think  you  have  found  the  hidden  out- 
line, the  picture  slips  from  you,  —  slips,  to  come 
back  with  a  mental  jerk  as  you  realise  your  fail- 
ure. There  is  no  poising  of  the  picture,  after  the 
riddle  has  been  read,  midway  between  crest  and 
base  of  the  wave  of  consciousness. 

Suppose,  however,  that  we  accept  the  law; 
suppose  that  we  agree  upon  the  dual  clearness  of 
consciousness.  The  duality  will  range  from 
maximal  to  minimal  difference,  according  to  the 
degree  of  'concentration'  of  attention.  When 
we  are  totally  absorbed,  we  are  also  absent- 
minded  ;  the  upper  level  is  admirably  clear, 
the  lower  is  exceedingly  obscure.  When  we 
are  less  fixedly  attentive,  there  will  be  a  less 
marked  difference  between  the  two  conscious 
levels.  Now,  then,  the  question  arises :  Do  all 
the  part-contents,  within  the  two  divisions  of 
consciousness,  show  one  and  the  same  degree  of 
clearness  ?     The  main  division,  we  will  assume. 


230  THE  LAWS   OF  ATTENTION:  I 

is  plain  enough ;  consciousness  is  arranged  step- 
fashion.  But  is  the  surface  of  consciousness,  at 
the  two  levels,  smooth  and  unwrinkled,  or  are 
there  differences  of  emphasis  both  over  the  area 
of  relative  clearness  and  over  the  area  of  relative 
obscurity  ? 

We  will  begin  at  the  bottom.  Morgan  makes 
his  'subconscious'  elements  ''subconscious  in 
different  degrees";  he  speaks  of  "a  short  rising 
slope  of  dawning  consciousness  and  a  longer 
falling  slope  of  waning  consciousness."  ^^  I  am 
not  sure,  however,  how  far  this  purports  to  be 
matter  of  observation,  and  how  far  it  is  merely  a 
diagrammatic  representation,  due  to  the  'wave' 
metaphor.  Angell,  you  will  remember,  speaks 
of  a  'gradual'  fading  away  into  'vaguer  and 
vaguer  consciousness ' ;  and  if  he  had  not 
accepted  Baldwin's  fourfold  arrangement,  we 
might,  perhaps,  interpret  these  words  to  indi- 
cate simply  relative  difference  of  obscurity 
within  a  single  general  obscurity.  Wundt  seems, 
at  first  reading,  to  be  quite  definite.  "  [Es] 
lasst  sich  experimentell  mit  Sicherheit  nach- 
weisen,  dass  [die  dunklen,]  mit  dem  appercipir- 
ten  Inhalt  meist  nur  in  einem  losen  und  aus- 
seren  Zusammenhang  stehenden  begleitenden 
Vorstellungen  die  allerverschiedensten  Grade 
der  Klarheit  darbieten  konnen,  von  einer  oberen 


THE  TWO   LEVELS  231 

Grenze  an,  wo  sie  noch  als  zwar  undeutliclie, 
jedoch  in  ihren  allgemeinen  Eigenschaften  noch 
einigermassen  erkennbare  Objecte  erfasst  war- 
den, bis  zu  einer  unteren,  wo  nur  festzustellen 
ist,  dass  iiberhaupt  in  einem  bestimmten  Sin- 
nesgebiet  irgend  etwas  vorhanden  war,  das  im 
Bewusstsein  wirksam  wurde,  aber  schon  im 
Moment,  nachdem  der  Eindruck  voriiberge- 
gangen,  nicht  mehr  zur  Apperception  gebracht 
werden  kann."  ^^  I  say  that  this  seems  definite; 
and  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  Wundt's 
general  opinion,  —  that,  within  the  total  ob- 
scurity of  marginal  consciousness,  differences  of 
relative  position  may  be  made  out.  iVt  the 
same  time,  he  speaks  of  the  'passage  of  the  im- 
pression,' and  a  footnote  refers  us  to  his  dis- 
cussion of  tachistoscopic  experiments.  I  am, 
then,  after  all  not  sure  that  Wundt  is  not  illus- 
trating one  thing  by  another,  illustrating  mar- 
ginal differences  of  clearness  by  reference  to  dif- 
ferences within  the  upper  level  of  consciousness. 
For  myself,  I  find  the  issue  very  difficult  to 
decide.  Since  the  relative  clearness  of  any 
particular  process  depends  upon  conditions,  — 
the  conditions  that  we  listed  in  the  last  Lecture, 
—  and  since  our  nervous  system  is  an  extraordi- 
narily complex  mechanism,  and  may  be  very 
variously  affected  at  any  given  time,  I  see  no 


232  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

reason  a  priori  why  there  may  not  be  differ- 
ences of  obscurity  in  the  lower  level  as  there 
undoubtedly  are  differences  of  clearness  in  the 
upper.  Nevertheless,  I  am  by  no  means  sure 
that  I  discover  these  differences.  Observation 
in  the  large  is  practically  impossible;  one  must 
catch  favourable  moments  as  they  occur  in  the 
course  of  experimentation.  And  I  mean  by 
*  favourable'  moments  occasions  when  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  main  levels  is  not 
overgreat,  —  when,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
the  observer's  attention  is  less  fixed  and  con- 
centrated than  the  experiment  properly  requires. 
I  have  caught  myself,  time  and  again,  slipping 
from  the  prescribed  object  of  attention  to  some 
secondary  circumstance  or  obtruding  idea;  but 
when  I  ask  whether,  a  few  seconds  earlier,  that 
circumstance  or  idea  was  clearer  amidst  ob- 
scurity than  the  look  of  my  surroundings  or 
the  organic  background  of  consciousness,  I  am 
unable  to  give  a  definite  answer.  The  problem 
might,  perhaps,  be  attacked  indirectly  by  an 
inversion  of  the  method  of  distraction.  If,  e.g., 
we  could  show  that  very  various  degrees  of 
reinforcement  were  needed  to  shift  the  focus  of 
attention  to  contents  that  were  known  to  be  in 
the  conscious  margin,  then  we  might  argue  that 
these  contents  themselves  were  originally  pres- 


THE  TWO   LEVELS  233 

ent  at  different  degrees  of  clearness  or,  rather, 
of  obscurity.  It  is  further  possible  that  the 
experiments  would  give  opportunity  for  the 
introspective  verification  of  the  differences  thus 
objectively  determined. 

We  have  better  evidence  to  go  upon  when  we 
look  at  the  contents  of  the  upper  level,  the 
apperceived  contents;  for  we  may  appeal  to 
the  results  of  all  the  experiments  upon  the 
'span  of  consciousness'  or  the  'range  of  atten- 
tion.' I  begin  with  Dietze's  determination  of 
what  Wundt  still  terms  the  'Umfang  des  Be- 
wusstseins.'  ^^  The  observer  in  these  experiments 
listened  to  series  of  metronome  beats,  which 
were  separated  into  groups  by  the  sound  of  a 
bell;  the  problem  was  to  discover  the  upper 
limit  at  which  two  successive  series  might  be 
discriminated,  without  counting,  as  of  different 
lengths.  We  are  interested  just  now,  not  in 
the  numerical  results,  but  in  the  state  of  con- 
sciousness. Dietze  writes  on  this  topic  as  fol- 
lows: **Bedingung  der  Zusammenfassung  einer 
gegebenen  iVnzahl  von  Vorstellungen  in  eine 
Reihe  ist,  .  .  .  dass,  wenn  nach  Ablauf  der 
Reihe  eine  neue,  in  gleichem  Zeitintervall  fol- 
gende  .  .  .  Vorstellung  appercipirt  wird,  in  die- 
sem  Moment  die  erste  Vorstellung  eben  erst  auf 
der   Schwelle    des   Bewusstseins    angelangt    ist. 


234  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

.  .  .  Der  Grad  der  Klarheit  der  gleichzeitig 
anwesenden  Vorstellungen  wird  nun  einmal 
abhangen  von  der  jeweiligen  Entfernung  der 
Vorstellungen  vom  Blickpunkt  des  Bewusstseins 
und  zweitens  von  der  Energie,  mit  welcher  die 
Vorstellungen  appercipirt  worden  sind;'*^^  the 
ideas  show  a  gradation  of  clearness,  which  in 
part  is  a  simple  function  of  time  elapsed,  in  part 
depends  on  the  emphasis  of  subjective  accentua- 
tion. Wundt  writes  to  the  same  effect,  though 
less  cautiously,  in  the  Physiologische  Psycholo- 
gie.  '*In  dem  Moment,  wo  ein  neuer  Reiz 
...  in  den  Blickpunkt  des  Bewusstseins  tritt, 
werden  stets  die  vorangegangenen  noch  in 
abgestufter  Klarheit  vorhanden  sein."  '*Die 
unmittelbar  vorangegangenen  Eindriicke  sind 
.  .  .  keineswegs  aus  dem  Bewusstsein,  ja  die 
nachsten  nicht  einmal  ganz  aus  dem  engeren 
Focus  der  Aufmerksamkeit  verschwunden,  son- 
dern  sie  treten  nur  allmahlich  in  den  dunkleren 
Umkreis  des  inneren  Blickfeldes  zuriick.  Hier 
verdunkeln  sie  sich  dann  um  so  mehr,  je  weiter 
sie  durch  die  inzwischen  abgelaufene  Reihe  von 
dem  momentan  appercipirten  Eindruck  getrennt 
sind,  bis  sie  endlich  bei  einem  bestimmten 
Punkte  aus  dem  Bewusstsein  verschwinden."  ^^ 
I  shall  not  discuss  the  general  question,  how 
far  or  in  what  sense  these  experiments  serve  to 


THE  TWO  LEVELS  235 

measure  the  span  of  consciousness.  But  I  must 
take  issue  with  Wundt's  introspective  interpreta- 
tion. We  are  to  suppose  that  the  metronome 
beats  march  out  of  consciousness,  in  single  file, 
each  one  growing  dimmer  and  dimmer  until  it 
finally  crosses  the  conscious  limen  and  dis- 
appears. Now  look  at  that  statement  logically. 
You  remember  that  the  sounds  are  not  all 
equally  clear;  some  of  them  are  subjectively 
accentuated.  Suppose,  then,  that  an  eight- 
membered  rhythmical  unit  is  passing  out  of 
consciousness.  The  first  member  is  relatively 
very  clear;  the  second  member  is  relatively 
obscure.  Will  the  first  pass  out  before  the 
second  ?  It  ought  not  to  do  this;  it  is  only  one 
place  ahead  in  the  order  of  time,  while  it  is  three 
places  ahead  in  the  order  of  clearness,  of  rhyth- 
mical accent.  Logically,  the  prior  but  clear 
term  should  remain  after  the  later  but  obscure 
term  has  disappeared. 

I  know  that  logic  is  not  psychology ;  but  then 
psychology  is  not,  either,  illogical.  You  may, 
however,  urge  that  the  unit  in  the  present  in- 
stance is  the  complete  rhythmical  form,  not  the 
single  metronome  stroke ;  and  that  the  rhyth- 
mical units  may  tail  off  in  consciousness  in  the 
way  that  Wundt  describes.  Wundt  speaks, 
definitely,   of  the   individual   Schallreiz;    but   I 


236  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

will  accept  the  amendment.  The  appeal  then 
lies  to  introspection :  do  we  actually  find  the 
gradations  of  clearness,  as  between  unit  and 
unit,  incoming  and  outgoing  ideas  ?  Schumann, 
who  engaged  Wundt  in  a  controversy  on  this 
matter,  finds  no  trace  of  them.  "So  oft  ich 
auch  bei  den  obigen  Experimenten  versucht 
habe,  etwas  von  den  in  den  dunklen  Umkreis 
des  inneren  Blickfeldes  zuriicktretenden  Vor- 
stellungen  zu  bemerken,  so  ist  es  mir  doch  nie 
gelungen  und  ebensowenig  den  Versuchsperso- 
nen  [among  whom  was  Mliller],  welche  ich 
darauf  aufmerksam  machte."  Schumann's  own 
explanation  is  couched  in  terms  of  sensory  and 
motor  Einstellung,  feelings  of  fulfilled  or  dis- 
appointed expectation.^^ 

On  the  negative  side,  my  own  introspection 
agrees  with  that  of  Schumann  and  his  observers ; 
I  cannot  put  my  finger  on  the  train  of  vanishing 
ideas.  On  the  positive  side,  I  think  that  Schu- 
mann's account  holds  under  certain  conditions, 
—  not  under  all.  But  even  if  we  accept  the 
theory  of  a  'simultane  Gesammtvorstellung,' 
there  is  no  need  to  assume  Wundt 's  series  of 
graded  ideas;  all  sorts  of  surrogates  are  possible. 

I  am  sorry  to  have  led  you  so  far  afield ;  but 
there  was  no  alternative.  If  Wundt 's  analysis 
were  correct,  we  should  have  not  only  to  give 


THE  TWO  LEVELS  237 

up  our  law  of  the  two  levels,  but  also,  I  believe, 
to  recast  a  good  portion  of  his  own  systematic 
teaching.  I  do  not  propose  to  do  either,  but 
to  utilise  Dietze's  results  in  another  direction. 
The  important  thing  for  our  present  purpose  is 
this :  that  the  experiments  show,  without  any 
question,  the  coexistence  of  different  degrees  of 
clearness  at  the  higher  level  of  consciousness. 
While  a  rhythmical  unit  may  be  clear  as  a  whole, 
its  constituent  elements  vary  in  clearness-degree. 
The  same  thing  holds  of  simultaneously  pre- 
sented visual  impressions,  all  of  which  fall 
within  the  area  of  distinct  vision.  ''Man  be- 
merkt,"  says  Wundt,  "ausser  den  deutlich  apper- 
cipirten  Eindrlicken  zunachst  eine  Anzahl 
anderer,  die  sich  als  'halbdunkel'  bezeichnen 
lassen :  hier  ist  man  im  stande,  einzelne  nach- 
traglich  durch  angestrengte  Aufmerksamkeit  auf 
das  reproducirte  Bild  des  Gesammteindrucks  zu 
erkennen.  Daneben  existirt  aber  immer  noch 
ein  weiteres,  'ganz  dunkles'  Feld,  bei  dem  man 
nur  uberhaupt  feststellen  kann,  dass  irgend 
ctwas  da  war."  ^^  This  last,  the  'wholly  ob- 
scure '  field,  belongs  unquestionably  —  if  I  may 
trust  my  own  observation  —  to  the  lower  level 
of  consciousness ;  the  '  something  there '  is  a 
something  of  precisely  the  same  kind  as  the  look 
of  the  tachistoscope  itself,  or  of  the  black  walls 


238  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

of  the  observing  tube.  But  the  other  two  grades, 
the  *  clear'  and  the  *half  obscure,'  belong,  as 
certainly,  to  the  upper  level.  Let  us  see  pre- 
cisely what  the  distinction  means. 

When  a  tachistoscopic  field  is  exposed  for 
the  first  time  to  an  unpractised  observer,  he  will 
very  probably  fail  to  'make  out'  anything  at 
all;  the  lines  or  letters  or  geometrical  figures 
are  seen  as  a  general  impression,  without  dis- 
crimination of  detail.  Was,  then,  the  field 
obscure  ?  Surely  not !  The  observer  was  '  at- 
tending' with  all  the  concentration  he  could 
summon ;  the  field  was  the  clearest  thing  in  his 
consciousness.  What  he  failed  to  do  was  to 
cognise.  Cognition  is  not  clearness;  it  is  an 
associative  process  of  the  assimilative  kind. 
Apperception  and  cognition  are  so  usually  con- 
joined, in  our  adult  experience,  that  we  may 
sometimes  forget  to  separate  them;  but  psy- 
chologically they  are  different  things.  When, 
then,  the  practised  observer  tells  us  that  some  of 
the  details  in  the  exposure-field  are  'clear'  and 
others  'half  obscure,'  he  means  that  he  has 
cognised  the  former  and  failed  to  cognise  the 
latter ;  all  alike  were  clear,  but  the  clearness  did 
not,  in  all  cases,  suffice  for  cognition.  The  fact 
that  the  half-obscure  elements  are  recoverable 
in  the  'image  of  reproduction'  shows  that  they 


THE  TWO   LEVELS  239 

were  well  within  the  field  of  clearness;  the  fact 
that  they  were  not  directly  cognised  shows  that 
this  field  is  not  uniformly  illuminated,  that  parts 
of  it  are  more  strongly  accented  than  others,  — 
just  as,  in  the  temporal  field,  there  are  degrees 
of  clearness  among  the  members  of  a  rhythmical 
unit.^^ 

We  must  conclude,  therefore,  that  —  whatever 
is  the  case  at  the  lower  level  —  there  are  notice- 
able differences  of  clearness  in  the  processes  at 
the  upper  level  of  consciousness.  It  would  be 
strange  if  there  were  not !  And  one  of  the  most 
interesting  new  departures  in  experimental  psy- 
chology, to  my  mind,  is  the  work  now  in  progress 
in  the  Leipsic  laboratory  upon  this  very  point. 
Attempts  are  being  made  to  measure  the  differ- 
ences of  clearness  in  focal  contents,  whether 
by  determining  the  limen  of  change  at  various 
parts  of  a  spatial  field  or  by  comparing  the  times 
of  reaction  obtained  with  varying  distribution 
of  attention  .^^  Here  is  the  beginning  of  a  new 
chapter  in  scientific  psychology;  and  here  is 
Wundt  handling  the  problems  of  attention  as 
masterfully  as  when  he  first  began  to  experiment 
nearly  fifty  years  ago. 

We  are  now,  I  think,  at  the  point  where  it  is 
fitting  to  refer  to  James  and  his  conscious 
*  fringes.'      Ordinarily,    the     distinction    which 


240  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

James  draws  is  taken  to  be  the  same  as  that 
drawn  by  Morgan  in  the  terms  'focal'  and 
*  marginal/  "The  margin  of  mental  processes," 
says  Angell,  "outside  the  focal  point  of  atten- 
tion, constitutes  what  James  calls  the  'fringe  of 
consciousness.'"^^  No  doubt  there  are  plenty 
of  passages  in  which  this  use  may  be  found. 
But  if  we  turn  to  the  locus  classicus,  the  chapter 
on  the  'Stream  of  Thought,'  I  think  it  is  clear 
that  James  is  dealing  throughout  with  the  upper 
level  of  consciousness,  the  field  of  attention. 
He  comes  to  his  "psychic  overtone,  suffusion, 
or  fringe"  by  way  of  'transitive  states,'  'feelings 
of  relation,'  'feelings  of  tendency.'  And  his 
point  is  that  "every  definite  image  in  the  mind 
is  steeped  and  dyed  in  the  free  water  that  flows 
round  it."  I  do  not  understand  that  the  'free 
water'  is  flowing  at  a  lower  level,  but  simply 
that  —  within  the  area  of  attention  —  it  is  less 
stable  and  therefore  less  clear  than  the  'definite 
image.'  "The  fringe  ...  is  part  of  the  object 
cognised,  —  substantive  qualities  and  things  ap- 
pearing to  the  mind  in  a  fringe  of  relations. 
Some  parts  —  the  transitive  parts  —  of  our 
stream  of  thought  cognise  the  relations  rather 
than  the  things."  James  is  considering  the 
'cognitive  function  of  different  states  of  mind.' 
"Knowledge  about  a  thing  is  knowledge  of  its 


THE  TWO   LEVELS  241 

relations.  ...  Of  most  of  its  relations  we  are 
only  aware  in  the  penumbral  nascent  way  of  a 
'fringe'  of  unarticulated  affinities  about  it." 
This  penumbra  is  surely  the  analogue  of  the 
marginal  impressions  in  tachistoscopic  experi- 
ments, the  impressions  that  are  apperceived  but 
not  cognised.  I  do  not  want  to  labour  clumsily 
at  a  thing  that  James  has  treated  with  all  his 
accustomed  lightness  and  freshness  of  touch,  — 
but  I  think  it  is  pretty  obvious  that,  in  this  part 
of  his  psychology  of  cognition,  James  is  primarily 
concerned  with  the  upper  conscious  level.  He 
is  distinguishing  degrees  of  clearness  within  the 
clear,  not  distinguishing  clearness  from  ob- 
scurity. That  distinction  he  discusses  in  the 
following  section,  in  its  relation  to  interest  and 
attention,  accentuation  and  emphasis.^^  — 

In  fine,  then,  a  diagram  of  consciousness 
would  show,  in  terms  of  the  foregoing  analysis, 
a  two-level  formation,  broader  below  and  nar- 
rower above,  —  the  relative  width  and  height 
of  the  two  stages  differing  at  different  times. 
The  surfaces  are  not  smooth;  the  upper  cer- 
tainly, the  lower  probably,  is  creased  or  wrinkled. 
The  number  and  depth  of  the  wrinkles  will 
depend  upon  circumstances:  upon  the  condi- 
tions of  clearness  as  an  attribute  of  sensation, 
and    upon    the    more    complicated    conditions 


242  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION  :  I 

which  govern  the  degree  of  clearness  of  the  part- 
contents  of  ideas.  So  much  we  can,  perhaps, 
say  with  a  fair  amount  of  confidence.^^  But  the 
really  hopeful  thing,  for  experimental  psy- 
chology, is  the  programme  of  further  work,  the 
long  array  of  definite  problems  that  our  review, 
ever  so  hasty  as  it  is,  has  already  brought  to 
light.  We  can  hardly  be  on  a  wrong  track  if 
perspectives  open  as  they  are  opening  to-day  to 
the  students  of  attention. 

We  may  look,  in  the  third  place,  (3)  at  the 
temporal  relations  of  attention,  as  expressed  in 
the  laws  of  accommodation  and  of  inertia.  *'Die 
Aufmerksamkeit,"  says  Stumpf,  "braucht  eine 
gewisse  Zeit,  um  sich  dem  Eindruck  s.  z.  s. 
zu  accommodiren,  um  ihr  Maximum  zu  er- 
reichen."  ^^  The  fact  here  alluded  to  is  familiar 
to  all  of  us  in  connection  with  the  reaction  ex- 
periment; for  the  simple  reaction,  the  optimal 
accommodation-time  —  the  optimal  interval  be- 
tween signal  and  stimulus — is  about  1.5  seconds, 
while  for  transit-observations  it  is  apparently  a 
little  shorter,  about  1  second.  Attention  is, 
however,  flexible,  labile;  we  are  able,  as  Wundt 
points  out,  to  adapt  ourselves,  within  certain 
limits,  to  rhythms  of  different  period,  just  as  we 
can  adapt  ourselves  to  different  intensities  and 
qualities  of  stimulus.^^ 


ACCOMMODATION  OF  ATTENTION      243 

It  would  be  quite  wrong,  however,  to  identify 
this  *  accommodation '  of  attention  with  the  rise 
of  a  particular  sensation  to  maximal  clearness. 
We  have  a  number  of  determinations,  beginning 
in  the  early  sixties  and  extending  down  to  the 
present  day,  of  the  Ansteigen  of  sensations ;  *^ 
and  as  they  were  all  made  in  the  state  of  con- 
centrated attention,  the  times  which  they  fur- 
nish may  be  taken  as  the  times  required  for  a 
stimulus,  acting  under  the  most  favourable  con- 
ditions, to  produce  its  full  conscious  effect. 
These,  therefore,  are  the  times  that  a  psychology 
of  clearness  must  analyse  and  interpret.  The 
accommodation-time  is  rather  the  time  required 
for  peripheral  or  central  Einstellung,  — ''for  the 
accommodation  of  a  sense-organ,  or  for  the 
establishment  of  a  psychophysical  disposition ; 
it  gives  us  the  temporal  limen,  not  of  clearness, 
but  of  certain  conditions  of  clearness. 

Let  me  quote  you  an  observation  of  Pills- 
bury's.  '*Si,  tandis  qu'on  lit,  vient  un  desir 
soudain  de  savoir  Theure,  les  images  de  la 
pendule  rappelees  a  la  conscience  se  presentent  ^ 
avant  que  le  mouvement  ne  commence,  et  il  y 
a  un  intervalle  considerable  entre  I'instant  ou 
les  yeux  sont  fixes  sur  la  pendule  sans  adaptation 
complete  et  celui  ou  I'image  est  assez  nette  pour 
que  Ton  aitconnaissancede  I'heure."^^     Pillsbury 


244  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

IS  arguing  that  peripheral  adaptation  is  subse- 
quent to  attention  itself.  If,  however,  we  read 
'clearness'  for  'attention,'  the  facts  wear  a  little 
different  appearance.  I  want  to  know  the  time, 
and  I  look  across  the  room  at  the  clock.  The 
clock  is,  at  once,  the  clearest  thing  in  conscious- 
ness; but  it  is  not  yet  maximally  clear,  clear 
enough  for  cognition.  To  see  the  position  of  the 
hands,  I  must  wait  for  the  'accommodation  of 
attention,'  i.e.  for  the  adjustment  of  the  mechan- 
ism of  visual  accommodation.  This  peripheral 
adjustment  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  maximal 
clearness.  Before  accommodation  is  effected, 
I  am  in  much  the  same  position  as  one  who  is 
listening  to  a  lecturer  whose  voice  is  too  weak 
to  carry  across  the  room.  The  sounds  heard  are, 
again,  the  clearest  things  in  consciousness;  but 
they,  too,  fall  short  of  the  degree  of  clearness 
necessary  to  cognition,  because  intensity  —  one 
of  the  conditions  of  maximal  clearness  —  is 
lacking  to  them. 

I  The  law  of  'accommodation  of  attention'  is  a 
Ireal  law;  it  covers  a  large  number  of  facts  of 
/  observation.  But  it  is  a  law  of  the  conditions 
of  clearness,  or,  if  you  like,  a  law  of  the  total 
attentive  consciousness,  rather  than  of  clearness 
itself ;  and  in  an  elementary  psychology  of  atten- 
tion we  shall  do  well  to  pass  it  over,  and  to  limit 


INERTIA   OF  ATTENTION  245 

ourselves  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Anstieg. 
Very  much  the  same  thing,  I  think,  holds  of  the 
law  of  inertia,  to  which  I  now  turn. 

The  law  is  iormulated  by  Fechner  as  follows : 
"es  behagt  uns  bis  zu  gewissen  Grenzen  mehr, 
in  einer  einmal  eingehaltenen  Richtung  und 
hiemit  Beschaftigung  der  Aufmerksamkeit  zu 
verharren,  als  sie  zu  verlassen,  die  Beschaftigung 
zu  unterbrechen " ;  and  by  Stumpf,  in  similar 
terms,  as  follows:  **die  Aufmerksamkeit  halt 
leichter  etwas  bereits  Gegebenes  fest,  als  sie 
etwas  zu  Suchendes  findet."^^  It  covers  a  wide 
range  of  experience :  that  you  can  follow  the 
movement  of  a  single  instrument  in  the  orches- 
tra better,  when  there  has  been  solo-playing 
before,  than  when  the  whole  number  of  instru- 
ments begin  together;  that  you  can  finish  a 
conversation,  once  begun,  at  a  distance  which 
would  render  the  words  of  an  unexpected  ques- 
tion altogether  inaudible ;  that  you  can  trace  the 
upward  course  of  a  fire-balloon  to  a  point  at 
which  it  would  otherwise  be  quite  invisible. 
These  are  matters  of  perception ;  but  there  are 
analogies  in  plenty  in  the  realm  of  ideas.  It  is 
difficult  to  break  away  from  a  current  train  of 
thought,  and  to  give  your  full  attention  to  a 
letter  or  a  visitor ;  it  is  difficult  to  come  back  to 
your  scientific  work  when  you  have  been  bothered 
by  details  of  business  or  administration. 


246  THE   LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  I 

These  are  important  facts;  and  they  have 
been  taken  account  of,  m  various  ways,  by  ex- 
perimental psychology.  But  they  seem  to  me 
to  be  facts  which,  on  the  psychophysical  side,  re- 
late to  the  conditions  of  clearness,  —  peripheral 
adaptation,  psychophysical  disposition,  Perse- 
verationstendenz,^^  —  and,  on  the  psychological, 
to  the  time  relations  of  the  total  attentive  con- 
sciousness. They  are  therefore  beyond  the  range 
of  our  present  consideration.  An  elementary 
psychology  will  deal  with  the  sensation,  under 
its  aspect  of  clearness;  it  will  determine  the 
least  time  interval  between  two  maximal  clear- 
nesses in  the  same  and  disparate  senses ;  and 
it  will  measure  the  carrying  power  of  clearness, 
the  amount  of  fluctuation  which  may  be  intro- 
duced into  a  continuous  stimulus  w^ithout  im- 
pairment of  sensible  continuity.  Here,  again, 
there  are  methods  ready  for  our  use,  and  a  body 
of  experimental  results  awaiting  our  interpreta- 
tion.^^ And  the  law  of  inertia  offers  us  problems 
of  ever  increasing  complexity.  For,  since  inertia 
is  the  opposite  of  motility,  and  the  carrying 
power  of  clearness  is  the  opposite  of  our  liability 
to  distraction,  the  determinations  which  I  have 
just  mentioned  must  be  made  under  all  sorts  of 
conditions,  and  we  shall  be  led  on,  as  it  were,  by 
force    of   circumstance,   from   sensation   to   the 


INERTIA  OF  ATTENTION  247 

simpler    complexes,    and    from    these    to    con- 
sciousness itself. 

So  far,  I  think  that  my  proposal  of  a  simplified 
psychology  of  attention  has  been  justified,  — 
although  I  realise  to  the  full  the  schematic  char- 
acter of  this  treatment  of  the  subject.  In  the 
next  Lecture  we  shall  see  how  it  fares  with  still 
other  laws  of  attention. 


VII 

THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:    II 


LECTURE  VII 

THE  LAWS   OF   ATTENTION:    II 

I  HAVE  suggested  that  an  elementary  psy- 
chology of  attention  will  deal,  not  with  the 
facts  of  attentional  accommodation,  but  rather 
with  the  '  rise '  of  the  single  sensation ;  that  it  will 
begin,  not  with  the  gross  facts  of  attentional 
inertia,  but  rather  with  the  absolute  temporal 
limen  and  the  carrying  power  of  clearness  under 
simple  conditions.  I  have  been  careful  to  say 
that  the  results  of  experiment  in  these  fields  must 
be  'interpreted'  by  a  psychology  of  attention; 
the  factors  that  make  for  clearness  must  be 
separated  from  the  other  conditions  involved, 
and  must  if  possible  be  separately  estimated  or 
'weighted.'  We  get  a  hint  towards  this  analysis 
in  the  fourth  law  that  I  shall  mention,  —  (4)  the 
law  of  prior  entry.  The  stimulus  for  which  we 
are  predisposed  requires  less  time  than  a  like 
stimulus,  for  which  we  are  unprepared,  to  pro- 
duce its  full  conscious  effect.  Or,  in  popular 
terms,  the  object  of  attention  comes  to  conscious- 
ness more  quickly  than  the  objects  that  we  are 
not  attending  to. 

251 


252  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION  :  II 

We  have  rough-and-ready  illustrations  of  this 
law  in  various  features  of  the  reaction  experi- 
ment/ Many  of  the  effects  that  we  ascribe  to 
*  practice,'  in  the  most  diverse  kinds  of  experi- 
mental work,  also  fall  under  the  same  heading. 
A  strict  test,  of  the  elementary  sort,  w^ould  con- 
sist in  the  comparative  measurement  of  the 
Anstieg  and  of  the  absolute  temporal  limen, 
first  with  complete  predisposition,  and  secondly 
under  measurable  distraction.^  Unfortunately, 
as  we  shall  see  later,  measurable  distraction  is 
still  a  problem  for  the  future. 

In  the  meantime,  we  have  a  qualitative  demon- 
stration of  the  law  of  prior  entry  in  Stevens' 
inversion  of  the  complication  experiment.^  The 
arrangement  is  very  simple.  We  take  a  bell 
metronome,  and  a  cardboard  arc  whose  radius 
is  the  length  of  the  metronome  pendulum. 
Scale  divisions  of  5°  are  laid  off  upon  the  cir- 
cumference, and  the  arc  —  with  the  zero-point 
of  the  scale  corresponding  to  the  position  of 
equilibrium  of  the  pendulum  —  is  impaled  upon 
the  eye  which  serves  to  lock  the  lid  of  the  metro- 
nome. The  white  cardboard  thus  forms  a 
background,  in  front  of  which  the  pendulum 
oscillates.  A  piece  of  red  paper,  cut  to  the 
shape  of  an  arrow-head,  is  spitted  upon  the  end 
of  the  pendulum.     The  metronome  is  set  to  the 


PRIOR  ENTRY 


253 


rate  of,  say,  72  in  the  one  minute,  and  the  bell 
rings  at  every  complete  oscillation.  The  posi- 
tion of  objective  coincidence  of  bell-stroke  and 
arrow-head  may  be  found,  approximately,  by 
slowly  moving  the  pendulum  with  the  hand 
until  the  bell  sounds;  in  our  instrument,  it 
comes  at  about  22°.  The  experiment  is  then 
performed    in    two    ways.     First,    the    observer 


Fig.  6.    Simple  Complication  Pendulum. 

attends  to  the  moving  pointer ;  the  sound  of  the 
bell  is  secondary,  —  it  floats,  so  to  say,  upon 
the  main  current  of  visual  change.  Under  these 
conditions,  the  pointer  carries  the  bell  out ;  an 
average  determination  of  subjective  coincidence 
is  30°.  Secondly,  the  observer  attends  to  the 
bell ;  the  movement  of  the  pendulum  is  now 
secondary,  —  the    expected    bell-strokes    stand 


254  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

out  upon  an  indifferent  shifting  field.  Under 
these  conditions  the  temporal  displacement  of 
the  sound  is  negative,  not  positive ;  the  point  of 
subjective  coincidence  lies,  on  the  average,  be- 
tween 10°  and  15°.  It  is  very  clear  that  the 
stimulus  for  which  we  are  predisposed  has  the 
advantage  over  its  rival. 

I  call  this  observation  the  'inversion'  of  the 
complication  experiment,  because  in  it  the  direc- 
tion of  attention  is  prescribed,  whereas,  in  the 
complication  experiment  proper,  there  is  no 
preliminary  instruction,  and  attention  is  appealed 
to  only  after  the  event,  as  an  explanatory  prin- 
ciple. You  will,  however,  expect  me  to  say 
something  about  the  temporal  displacement  in 
complications,  —  a  fact  which,  until  the  appear- 
ance of  Geiger's  paper  in  1903,^^  was  one  of  the 
most  disputed  and  least  understood  in  the  whole 
range  of  experimental  psychology.  I  think  that 
Geiger's  introspective  analyses  give  us  a  defini- 
tive insight  into  the  mechanism  of  the  'compli- 
cated' consciousness,  although,  doubtless,  there 
is  work  of  detail  still  to  be  done. 

You  remember  the  circumstances.  A  pointer 
revolves  at  uniform  rate  before  a  scaled  clock- 
face.  At  some  moment  of  its  revolution,  un- 
known to  the  observer,  a  bell  is  sounded.  The 
observer  is  to  report  the  point  of  subjective  coin- 


PRIOR  ENTRY  255 

cidence  of  sight  and  sound,  the  moment  of  forma- 
tion of  an  Herbartian  'complication.'^  Intro- 
spection varies  very  considerably  with  variation 
of  conditions;  but  the  important  and  curious 
result  is  that,  under  certain  conditions,  the  bell- 
stroke  suffers  a  negative  displacement ;  it  is 
conjoined,  in  consciousness,  with  a  division  of 
the  scale  which  the  pointer  has  already  passed 
when  the  objective  sound  is  introduced.  The 
sound  is  'thrown  back';  it  is  heard  *too  early.' 
What  is  the  explanation  ? 

Very  different  explanations  have  been  sug- 
gested. One  of  the  first  investigators,  von 
Tchisch,  sought  an  analogy  in  the  premature 
reaction.^  Theoretically,  he  says,  two  things  are 
possible :  the  visual  perception  may  be  delayed, 
or  the  auditory  anticipated.  Now  there  is  no 
assignable  reason  for  delay.  "Es  ist  dagegen 
leicht  zu  erklaren,  dass  momentane  Reize  vor 
ilirem  Erscheinen  appercipirt  werden."  In  re- 
action experiments  with  a  constant  interval  be- 
tween signal  and  stimulus  you  find  a  gradual 
reduction  of  the  reaction  time;  the  values  be- 
come very  small,  and  finally  reach  zero,  —  "die 
Reactionszeit  .  .  .  wird  negativ."  Just  the 
same  thing  happens  in  the  complication  experi- 
ment; each  recurring  bell-stroke  is  the  'signal' 
for  the  next  following,  the  'stimulus.'     "Durch 


256  THE   LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

dieses  Wiederholen  wird  die  Apperception  nicht 
nur  vorbereitet,  sondern  dieselbe  reproducirt 
unmittelbar  den  Eindruck.  Mitliin  sind  das  die 
Bedingungen  unter  welchen  wir  horen,  flihlen, 
ehe  der  Reiz  thatsachlich  zustandekommt." 

Ideas  of  this  sort  were  natural  enough  in  1885, 
when  the  psychology  of  the  simple  reaction  was 
still  crude,  —  though  von  Tchisch  might,  per- 
haps, have  learned  better  from  the  Physiologische 
Psychologie  of  1880.'^  But,  whether  natural  or 
not,  they  are  psychologically  impossible.  "The 
explanation,"  says  James,  **  requires  us  to  be- 
lieve that  an  observer  .  .  .  shall  steadily  and 
without  exception  get  an  hallucination  of  a  bell- 
stroke  before  the  latter  occurs,  and  not  hear  the 
real  hell-stroke  afterwards.  I  doubt  w^hether  this 
is  possible,  and  I  can  think  of  no  analogue  to  it 
in  the  rest  of  our  experience."  ^  We  may  all 
subscribe  to  this  criticism.  Indeed,  the  ex- 
planation satisfied  nobody ;  every  later  psycholo- 
gist who  has  discussed  the  complication  experi- 
ment has  sought  to  improve  upon  it.  Sometimes, 
recourse  has  been  had  to  physiological  factors, 
the  quick  rise  of  auditory  and  the  slow  rise  of 
visual  sensations;  sometimes  to  psychological, 
the  interruption  of  the  visual  perception  of 
movement  and  the  substitution  therefor  of  a 
perception  of  position;    sometimes  the  explana- 


PRIOR  ENTRY  257 

tion  has  gone  still  further  afield,  to  the  observer's 
desire  to  make  a  good  showing,  to  do  as  well 
in  observation  as  his  fellows.®  All  unnecessary 
labour !  Wundt  had  given  the  right  cue,  in  his 
doctrine  of  the  "  Spannungswachsthum  der  Auf- 
merksamkeit"  ^^;  it  was  only  needful  to  follow 
up  the  cue  into  the  labyrinth  of  observational 
detail. 

Suppose  that  a  naive  observer  takes  his  place 
before  the  complication  clock;  and  suppose  that 
the  rate  of  revolution  is  moderate,  so  that  the 
bell-stroke  sounds  once  in  every  1.5  seconds. 
The  observer  follows  the  pointer  with  his  eye, 
and  in  the  very  first  revolution  refers  the  sound 
to  some  region  of  the  circle.  Notice  that  it  is  a 
region;  the  sound  seems  to  spread  over,  to  be 
coincident  with,  a  fairly  wide  range  of  scale 
marks.  The  second  revolution  narrows  this 
region ;  the  third  narrows  it  still  more,  —  and 
so  on,  until  finally  there  are  only  a  few  scale 
divisions,  one  or  two  on  either  side  of  the  objec- 
tively correct  position,  with  which  the  bell 
appears  to  coincide.  In  the  meantime,  attention 
has  been  sharpening  to  the  sound;  and,  more 
than  that,  an  accommodation  of  attention  has 
taken  place ;  the  observer  is  predisposed  to  hear 
the  bell  at  a  certain  instant.  The  instant  ar- 
rives ;  the  sound  is  apperceived,  rises  to  maximal 


258  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

clearness,  in  a  minimum  of  time ;  and  the  result 
is  that  scale  marks  which  the  pointer  had  trav- 
ersed before  the  hammer  struck  are  themselves 
apperceived,  come  to  the  focus  of  attention,  only 
along  with  the  objectively  later  complicating 
stimulus.  *'  [Der  Schall]  iiberholt  gleichsam  [die 
Theilstriche]  auf  dem  Wege  zur  Apperception/'  ^^ 
It  is  all  a  matter  of  prior  entry,  due  to  definite 
predisposition  of  the  attention ;  and  the  puzzle 
arises  simply  from  the  continuity  of  the  visual 
movement.  Had  there  been  one  sound  and  one 
sight,  and  had  the  sound  come  to  consciousness 
before  the  (objectively simultaneous)  sight,  no  one 
would  have  wondered.  It  is  the  backthrow  of 
the  sound  which  surprises  us ;  and  yet  that  back- 
throw  is,  under  the  conditions,  the  inevitable 
result  of  attentional  accommodation. 

I  need  not  go  into  this  question  at  greater 
length ;  you  will  find  a  full  and  clear  discussion 
in  Geiger's  article.  I  quote  only  a  few  sentences 
from  the  Physiologische  Psychologie  of  the  same 
year.  "  [Die  negativen  Zeitverschiebungen]  sind 
natiirlich  nicht  so  aufzufassen,  als  wenn  man 
einen  Reiz  wahrnehme,  noch  ehe  er  w^rklich 
stattfindet ;  sondern  in  eine  Reihe  von  Gesichts- 
eindrlicken,  die  im  Bewusstsein  die  simultane, 
aber  stetig  fliessende  Vorstellung  eines  Zeitver- 
laufs  bilden,  tritt  ein  momentaner  Schall-  oder 


LIMITED  RANGE  259 

Tasteindruck  ein,  der  als  solcher  nur  mit  irgend 
einem  einzelnen  Punkt  dieser  Zeitvorstellung 
associirt  werden  kann :  mit  welchem,  dies  hangt 
lediglich  von  den  Bedingungen  tlieils  des  Ein- 
drucks  selbst,  theils  seiner  Apperception  ab. 
Je  mehr  die  Aufmerksamkeit  auf  ihn  gespannt 
ist,  um  so  mehr  wird  er  an  den  Anfang  der  ihm 
zugeordneten  Zeitstrecke  des  Gesichtssinnes  ver- 
schoben,  je  mehr  jene  Spannung  erschwert  ist 
oder  aus  irgend  einen  Ursachen  abnimmt,  um 
so  mehr  riickt  er  gegen  das  Ende  derselben.  .  .  . 
Es  wird  stets  gleichzeitig  gehort  und  gesehen; 
aber  der  Umfang,  in  dem  die  beiden  nebenein- 
ander  hergehenden  Vorstellungsreihen  zusam- 
men  im  Bewusstsein  anwesend  sind,  lasst  der 
Verbindung  beider  einen  Spieh-aum,  innerhalb 
dessen  nun  theils  den  ausseren  Bedingungen 
theils  und  vornehmlich  der  Aufmerksamkeit  der 
entscheidende  Einfluss  zukommt."  ^^ 

Unless,  then,  I  am  unduly  optimistic,  the 
negative  displacement  of  the  bell-stroke,  in 
complication  experiments,  need  give  psycholo- 
gists no  further  trouble.  I  pass  to  a  brief  con- 
sideration of  (5)  the  law  of  limited  range. 

You  recall  the  facts.  If  a  group  of  objects, 
all  of  which  lie  within  the  scope  of  clear  vision, 
is    momentarily    exposed    by    means    of    some 


260  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

tachistoscopic  arrangement,  a  practised  observer 
is  able  to  cognise  from  four  to  six  of  them  'by 
a  single  act  of  attention.'  It  makes  no  difference 
whether  the  objects  are  lines,  or  geometrical 
figures,  or  numbers,  or  letters,  or  short  words; 
under  all  these  conditions,  the  range  of  clearness 
is  approximately  the  same.  Hence  you  find,  in 
the  current  text-books  of  psychology,  the  state- 
ment that  the  grasp  of  visual  attention  covers 
from  four  to  six  simultaneously  presented  simple 
impressions.^^ 

Ebbinghaus  takes  issue  with  this  statement. 
"Die  so  erhaltenen  Werte  .  .  .  sind  als  Um- 
fangsbestimmungen  der  Aufmerksamkeit  zwei- 
fellos  zu  hoch."  He  points  out  that  "das 
gleichzeitig  aufgefasste  immer  nur  ...  als  ein 
Ganzes  mit  mehreren  Teilen  erkannt  wird"; 
we  are  dealing,  not  with  four  to  six  separate 
objects,  but  with  separately  distinguished  parts 
of  an  unitary  whole.  He  argues,  however,  from 
the  results  of  the  complication  experiment,  "dass 
[die  Seele]  auf  zwei  voneinander  ganz  unab- 
hangige  Reihen  einfacher  Eindriicke  iangere 
Zeit  hindurch  gleichzeitig  aufmerksam  bleiben 
kann,  ja  daneben  noch  imstande  ist  .  .  .  man- 
cherlei  Ueberlegungen  zur  besseren  Losung  der 
Aufgabe  anzustellen."  In  simple  cases,  then, 
**kann  die  Aufmerksamkeit  ohne  Schwierigkeit 


LIMITED  RANGE  261 

zwei,  aussersten  Falls  vielleicht  drei,  voneinander 
ganz  unabhangigen  Dingeii  zuge wandt  werden . "  ^* 
If  we  accept  this  discussion  as  it  stands,  the 
number  of  objects  simultaneously  apprehensible 
by  the  attention  reduces  from  four  or  six  to  two 
or  three.  But  I  think  that  Ebbinghaus  has  mis- 
read his  authorities.  One  would  hardly  gather, 
from  his  text,  that  Wundt,  in  the  Physiologische 
Psychologie,  had  laid  equal  stress  upon  the  uni- 
tary character  of  the  tachistoscopic  field.  Yet 
Wundt  says,  definitely:  *'immer  bildet  dieses 
Feld  der  Apperception  eine  einheitliche  Vorstel- 
lung,  indem  wir  die  einzelnen  Theile  desselben 
zu  einem  Ganzen  verbinden.  So  verbindet  die 
Apperception  eine  Mehrheit  von  Schallein- 
driicken  zu  einer  Klang-  oder  Gerauschvorstell- 
ung,  eine  Mehrzahl  von  Sehobjecten  zu  einem  Ge- 
sichtsbild."  And  again  :  "man  bemerkt  ubrigens 
leicht,  dass  sich  die  Eindrlicke  auch  dann,  wenn 
sie  nicht  Bestandtheile  einer  schon  gelaufigen 
Vorstellung  sind,  doch  zu  einem  zusammenge- 
horigen  Bilde  vereinigen."  ^^  Can  anything  be 
plainer.^  Ebbinghaus'  ''reichhaltige  und  ge- 
gliederte  Einheit,"  which  is  apprehended  as  a 
whole  while  certain  divisions  or  subdivisions 
stand  out  in  clear  isolation,  —  *'mehr  oder 
minder  deutlich  gesondert, "  ^® — is  no  new  dis- 
covery, but  a  transcript  of  the  Wundtian  doctrine. 


262  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

The  other  side  of  Ebbinghaus'  exposition  is 
similarly  open  to  criticism.  The  bell-stroke  and 
the  visual  impressions  of  the  complication  experi- 
ment are,  as  stimuli,  disparate,  addressed  to  differ- 
ent sense-departments.  But  psychologically  they 
are  by  no  means"  voneinanderganzunabhangig." 
On  the  contrary,  the  sound,  after  a  very  few  ob- 
servations, becomes  organically  related  to  the 
movement  of  the  pointer;  the  two  things  seem 
to  go  together  naturally,  to  belong  to  each  other ; 
there  is  no  disparateness  in  idea.  There  re- 
main the  'mancherlei  Ueberlegungen ' ;  but  so 
far  as  my  experience  goes  —  and  Geiger  bears 
me  out  ^^  —  these  reflections  exist  only  in  Ebbing- 
haus'  imagination. 

The  case  stands,  therefore,  as  follows.  When- 
ever in  the  state  of  attention  two  stimuli  are  given 
simultaneously  or  in  immediate  succession,  they 
form  a  connected  whole ;  that  is  the  most 
general  law  of  association,  in  Ebbinghaus'  phras- 
ing.^ ^  From  this  point  of  view,  then,  the  field  of 
attention  is  limited  always  to  one  complex,  a 
single  associated  whole.  The  question  of  the 
range  of  attention  thus  becomes  the  question  of 
the  conscious  articulation  of  the  unitary  complex. 
In  psychological  terms  it  runs :  How  many  part- 
contents  are,  under  the  most  favourable  condi- 
tions,   distinguishable    within    the    whole  .^     In 


TEMPORAL  INSTABILITY  263 

psychophysical  terms :  How  many  stimuli  may 
become  clear  in  consciousness  at  one  and  the  same 
time  ?  And  the  current  answers,  although  they 
are  liable  to  experimental  revision,  may  be  taken 
as  valid  for  their  day  and  generation. 

We  are  on  much  more  difficult  ground  when 
we  turn  (6)  to  the  law  of  temporal  instability. 
This  law,  also,  may  be  approached  from  the  side 
either  of  descriptive  psychology  and  the  atten- 
tive consciousness,  or  of  experimental  psychology 
and  the  attribute  of  clearness. 

According  to  Wundt,  attention  is  discontinu- 
ous from  force  of  circumstances  and  intermittent 
by  its  very  nature.  It  is  discontinuous  because 
ideas  come  and  go  in  consciousness,  and  atten- 
tion grasps  but  one  idea  at  a  time  :  "  zwischen  der 
Apperception  je  zweier  auf  einander  folgender 
Vorstellungen  wird  immer  eine  Zwischenzeit 
liegen,  in  der  die  eine  schon  zu  weit  gesunken, 
die  andere  noch  nicht  zureichend  gehoben  ist, 
um  klar  appercipirt  zu  werden."  It  is  also  in- 
trinsically intermittent.  '' Dauernd  eine  Vor- 
stellung  mit  der  Aufmerksamkeit  festzuhalten  ist, 
wie  die  Erfahrung  lehrt,  schlechthin  unmoglich : 
.  .  .  ein  dauernder  Eindruck  kann  nur  festge- 
halten  werden,  indem  Momente  der  Spannung 
und   der   Abspannung   derselben    mit   einander 


264  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

wechseln.  Auf  diese  Weise  ist  die  Aufmerk- 
samkeit  ihrem  Wesen  nach  eine  inter mittirende 
Function."  '^ 

In  his  remarks  on  discontinuity,  I  think  that 
Wundt  has  in  mind  what  he  himself  elsewhere 
terms  a  limiting  case,  the  typical  associative 
consciousness  of  the  English  school. ^^  For,  so 
far  as  introspection  goes,  we  may  attend,  con- 
tinuously and  unremittingly,  for  very  consider- 
able periods:  we  read  a  novel  or  a  scientific 
monograph  at  a  sitting,  we  follow  a  whole  act  of 
grand  opera,  we  work  at  our  special  subject  for 
two  or  three  or  four  hours  at  a  time,  without 
sensible  interruption  of  attention.  There  are 
objective  interruptions,  of  course :  we  stop  read- 
ing to  pursue  a  train  of  thought,  to  work  out  a 
difficulty,  to  cut  the  pages  of  the  book ;  we  look 
away  from  the  stage  to  exchange  a  remark  with 
our  neighbour;  we  get  up  to  verify  a  reference, 
or  we  pause  to  slip  a  fresh  sheet  of  paper  into  the 
typewriter.  And  these  interruptions  illustrate, 
often  enough,  the  labile,  instable  character  of 
attention;  we  drop  from  our  high  level  of 
concentration  to  *take  things  easily,'  to  *let 
our  mind  wander'  for  a  while.  But  instability 
is  not  discontinuity ;  and,  in  the  experiences  now 
under  consideration,  instability  itself  is  not  the 
universal  rule.     We  may  very  possibly  give  our 


TEMPORAL  INSTABILITY  265 

full  attention,  without  lapse  of  any  sort,  to  the 
question  asked  of  us,  or  to  the  accurate  adjust- 
ment of  the  new  sheet;  or,  contrariwise,  we  may 
hokl  firmly  to  our  original  topic,  and  speak  and 
act  automatically.  All  these  cases  demand  closer 
analysis;  but  on  the  whole  James'  statement  — 
that  "thought  is  sensibly  continuous"  ^^ — seems 
to  me  to  be  nearer  the  facts,  and  nearer  also  to 
Wundt's  general  psychological  doctrine,  than  the 
counter-assertion  that  attention  is  discontinu- 
ous. I  should  question  the  appearance  of  dis- 
continuity even  in  extreme  instances  of  successive 
association.  '*  Dauernde  Aufmerksamkeit,"  says 
Ebbinghaus,  "gibt  es  nur  bei  einem  stetigen 
Wechsel  der  Inhalte,  in  deren  Hervortreten  das 
Aufmerksamsein  besteht."^"  The  'nur'  we  have 
still  to  discuss ;  but  we  may  surely  agree  that 
attention  can  be  sustained,  and  that  the  shift  of 
ideas  is  continuous. 

What,  then,  of  the  Apperceptionsivellen  ?  Is 
attention  intrinsically  intermittent,  and  is  it  im- 
possible to  hold  a  single,  simple  content  steadily 
in  the  focus  of  consciousness  ? 

We  must  not  demand  too  much.  Conscious- 
ness is  always  in  flux,  and  'dauernd'  is  a  relative 
term.  Sensible  quality,  for  instance,  cannot 
maintain  itself  in  consciousness  for  any  length  of 
time;    wherever  there   is  sensory  adaptation  — - 


266  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTEXTION  :  II 

in  pressure,  in  temperature,  in  sight,  in  smell, 
to  some  extent  in  taste  —  there  is  also  gradual 
change  or  disappearance  of  quality.  The  condi- 
tions of  clearness,  central  predisposition  and 
peripheral  accommodation,  may  be  given ;  but 
the  quality  will  still  fade  out.  Yet  we  do  not 
speak  of  quality  as  an  intrinsically  intermittent 
attribute  of  sensation  !  What  is  the  evidence, 
then,  in  the  case  of  attention,  of  clearness  itself  ? 
It  is  necessary,  at  this  point,  to  change  the 
venue  to  the  laboratory,  because  descriptive  psy- 
chology cannot  distinguish  between  discontinuity, 
due  to  the  come-and-go  of  ideas,  and  intrinsic 
intermittence.  The  chief  and  obvious  reason 
that  we  are  unable,  under  the  conditions  of  every- 
day life,  to  hold  fast  to  a  single  idea  is  that  other, 
invading  and  competing  ideas  oust  it  from  the 
conscious  focus.  Only  experiment,  therefore, 
can  decide  recjarding  the  'fluctuation'  of  atten- 
tion. And  experiment,  as  you  know,  has  been  at 
work  with  ever  increasing  frequency  since  1875. 
Investigations  have  been  made  by  the  help  of 
*  minimal '  stimuli,  —  stimuli  that  are  so  small  or 
so  weak  or  so  little  different  from  their  surround- 
ings that  the  least  slip  of  attention,  the  slightest 
loss  of  clearness,  will  mean  their  complete  dis- 
appearance from  consciousness;  it  is  far  easier 
to  say  that  we  do  or  do  not  hear  or  see  something 


TEMPORAL  INSTABILITY  267 

than  it  is  to  be  sure  that  what  we  see  or  hear 
has  grown  more  or  less  clear.  Visual,  auditory, 
and  cutaneous  stimuli  have  been  employed : 
light  and  colour,  tone  and  noise,  mechanical 
pressure  and  the  interrupted  current.  The  ques- 
tions at  issue  may  be  formulated,  in  logical  order, 
as  follows :  Does  fluctuation  occur  in  all  sense- 
departments  ?  Are  the  conditions  of  fluctuation, 
where  it  occurs,  central  or  peripheral  ?  And,  if 
they  are  central,  are  they  the  conditions  of  'at- 
tention '  ?  We  begin  with  the  question  of  sense- 
departments. 

Lange,  who  was  the  first  systematically  to  in- 
vestigate the  subject,  found  fluctuation  in  all 
three,  —  sight  (Masson  disc),  hearing  (watch- 
tick)  and  touch  (induction  current).  Let 
us  confine  ourselves  for  the  moment  to  touch. 
Fluctuations  of  electro-cutaneous  sensations  were 
later  observed  by  Lehmann ;  and  fluctuations  of 
areal  pressure  by  Wiersma.  On  the  other  hand, 
Ferree  and  Geissler,  working  recently  in  my  own 
laboratory,  have  been  unable  to  confirm  these 
results.  Ferree  reports  briefly  that  *'liminal 
pressure  stimuli  [very  smooth  cork  wafers  sup- 
porting minimal  weights]  were  applied  to 
several  observers,  but  no  fluctuations  were  expe- 
rienced"; and  that  with  liminal  electro-cutane- 
ous stimulation  at  the  tip  of  the  tongue  "no 


268  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

fluctuations  of  intensity  could  be  detected,  al- 
though repeated  attempts  were  made  on  a  num- 
ber of  observers."  Geissler,  who  repeated  and 
extended  the  experiments  of  Wiersma  and  Fer- 
ree,  comes  to  the  same  conclusion.  *' Under 
favourable  circumstances,  attention  focussed 
upon  liminal  and  supraliminal  cutaneous  sensa- 
tions remains  approximately  constant  for  at  least 
two  to  three  minutes,  provided  that  physiological 
adaptation  of  the  sense-organ  and  violently 
obtruding  distractions  can  be  avoided  for  this 
length  of  time."  The  *two  to  three  minutes'  is 
a  conservative  estimate;  the  time  was  often  ex- 
ceeded, and  on  one  occasion  a  trained  observer 
reported  no  fluctuation  for  ten  minutes  !  How 
much  longer  he  might  have  attended  we  do  not 
know;  at  the  end  of  the  ten  minutes  his  obser- 
vation was  interrupted  by  the  experimenter, 
who  thought  that  something  was  the  matter. 

This  absence  of  fluctuation  in  the  sphere  of 
touch  —  if  we  may  accept  it  as  fact  —  strongly 
suggests  that  the  conditions  of  fluctuation  at  large 
are  not  central  but  peripheral.  For  the  skin  has 
no  special  mechanism  of  accommodation,  and 
possesses  but  a  poor  substitute  in  the  *  Tastzuck- 
ungen'  that  Czermak  noticed  in  his  blind  ob- 
servers. Involuntary  tremors  in  the  hand  were 
a  minor  source  of  disturbance  in  Geissler's  ex- 


TEMPORAL  INSTABILITY  269 

periments.  We  might  argue,  therefore,  that 
fluctuation  will  appear  only  where  there  is  a 
peripheral  apparatus  for  accommodation,  and 
that  the  appeal  to  central  conditions  is  unneces- 
sary. Unfortunately,  as  we  shall  see,  the  issue 
is  more  complicated.^^  — 

Aside  from  touch,  we  have  a  reported  failure 
of  fluctuation  in  the  case  of  auditory  stimuli. 
The  experimental  results  are,  however,  contra- 
dictory; Heinrich,  whose  observations  upon  tones 
were  in  part  confirmed  in  the  Cornell  laboratory, 
finds  no  fluctuation,  while  Dunlap  declares  that 
'*the  fluctuations  were  unmistakably  observed 
by  each  of  the  five  subjects  employed."  The 
difference  is,  apparently,  a  matter  of  conditions, 
which  must  be  further  studied.  I  return  to  the 
point  presently.^* 

Our  second  question  was  that  of  the  peripheral 
or  central  seat  of  the  fluctuations;  and,  in  turning 
to  it,  we  shall  naturally  think,  first  of  all,  of  the 
mechanisms  of  accommodation.  There  can, 
however,  be  no  doubt  that  their  presence  is  not 
essential.  Visual  fluctuations  have  been  observed 
by  Pace  during  temporary  paralysis  of  the  muscles 
of  accommodation,  and  by  Slaughter  and  Ferree 
in  the  case  of  aphacic  subjects;  auditory  fluc- 
tuations occur,  according  to  Urbantschitsch  and 
Eckener,  despite  the  lack  of  a  tympanic  mem- 


270  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

brane.  At  the  same  time,  the  occurrence  of 
fluctuation  when  the  mechanisms  are  absent  does 
not  prove  that  shift  of  accommodation  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  fluctuation  in  the  normal  organ, 
where  they  are  present  and  in  working  order. 
And  Heinrich  maintains,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that 
the  fluctuation  of  visual  point-areas  corresponds 
with  variation  in  the  curvature  of  the  lens,  and 
that  the  fluctuation  of  minimal  noises  is  due  to 
**pulsatorische  Aenderungen  des  tensor  tympani 
in  seinem  Erregungszustande."^^ 

It  is  impossible,  in  the  present  state  of  our 
problem,  to  take  a  definite  stand  for  or  against 
Heinrich's  explanations.  The  peripheral  theory 
which  he  represents  obviously  requires  a  central 
supplement;  but  that  is  not  a  decisive  argument. 
What  compels  us  to  a  suspension  of  judgment  — 
perhaps  even  to  a  negative  attitude,  at  least  so 
far  as  vision  is  concerned  —  is  the  appearance 
of  new  observations  and  a  new  theory.  Ferree 
has  published  two  elaborate  investigations,  in 
which  he  seeks  to  show  *'that  the  intermit- 
tences  of  sensation  resulting  from  minimal  visual 
stimuli  .  .  .  are,  in  reality,  simply  adaptation- 
phenomena  somewhat  obscured  by  the  special 
conditions.*'  "  Adaptation  is,  in  itself,  a  continu- 
ous phenomenon,  but  its  continuity  is  interfered 
with  by  eye-movement,  blinking,  etc.     Through 


TEMPORAL  INSTABILITY  271 

these  influences,  probably  essentially  through  that 
of  eye-movement  alone,  it  becomes  an  inter- 
mittent process,  whether  the  stimulus  be  liminal 
or  intensive,  provided  that  proper  areas  be  used. 
The  conditions  are  especially  favourable  for 
short  periods  of  intermittence  when  the  stimuli 
are  liminal  and  of  small  area."  The  central  idea 
of  this  theory,  the  combination  of  local  adapta- 
tion and  eye-movement,  goes  back  at  least  as 
far  as  1894 ;  but  the  theory  itself,  as  fitted  to  the 
phenomena  of  visual  fluctuation,  may  justly  be 
described  as  new.  Ferree  has  worked  it  out  for 
adaptation  and  for  the  converse  of  adaptation, 
the  negative  after-image;  he  has  taken  account 
both  of  voluntary  and  of  involuntary  eye-move- 
ment; he  has  made  observations  in  direct  and 
in  indirect  vision ;  he  has  determined  the  condi- 
tions under  which  fluctuation  does  and  does  not 
occur.  In  particular,  he  has  been  venturesome 
enough  to  announce  a  new  discovery  in  physio- 
logical optics :  "eye-movement  .  .  .  determines 
or  influences  the  washing  or  streaming  over  the 
retina  of  some  material  capable  of  directly  affect- 
ing the  visual  processes."  His  chain  of  evidence 
is  not  yet  complete,  and  I  may  be  prejudiced  in 
favour  of  an  investigation  which  was  begun  and 
largely  carried  out  in  my  laboratory;  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  Ferree 's  principles  are  likely 


272  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

to  give  us  a  definitive  solution  of  the  problem 
of  fluctuation  in  the  sphere  of  vision. 

Hammer,  like  Ferree,  appeals  to  local  adapta- 
tion and  slipping  of  fixation:  "doch  ist  es  wohl 
iiberdies  nicht  unmoglich,"  he  says,  "dass  der 
Adaptationsprozess  gleichwie  der  negativen  Nach- 
bilder  seiner  Natur  nach  intermittierend  ist." 
Ferree  finds,  however,  that  adaptation  is  '  a  con- 
tinuous phenomenon,'  and  that  "fluctuation  is 
not  grounded  in  the  nature  of  the  after-image 
process."  Hammer  then  proceeds  to  report 
experiments  on  sound,  and  concludes  —  this  is 
the  point  to  which  I  said  just  now  that  I  should 
recur  —  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  auditory 
fluctuation.  "Auf  dem  Gebiete  des  Gehors- 
sinns  existieren  tiberhaupt  keine  Aufmerksam- 
keitsfluktuationen."  If  that  conclusion  could 
be  accepted,  our  path  would  be  smooth  indeed  ! 
—  no  fluctuations  in  touch;  no  fluctuations  in 
hearing,  —  the  whole  question  of  the  role  of  the 
tensor  in  fluctuation  shelved  for  ever;  fluctuations 
in  sight  alone,  and  due  in  the  case  of  sight  to 
very  special  conditions  residing  in  the  function 
of  the  peripheral  organ.  But  too  many  observers 
have  recorded  auditory  fluctuation  for  us  lightly 
to  disregard  the  positive  testimony;  all  that  we 
may  do,  again,  is  to  suspend  judgment. ^^  — 

We  are  not  even  yet  out  of  the  wood.     For 


TEMPORAL  IxXSTABILITY  273 

peripheral  —  or  at  least  subcortical  —  conditions 
of  jfluctuation  may  be  found,  not  only  in  the  or- 
gans of  sense  themselves,  but  also  in  those  syste- 
mic changes  that  are  studied  by  the  method  of 
expression.  The  influence  of  tlie  pulse,  for  in- 
stance, is  attested  by  Stumpf ,  Mach,  and  Preyer 
for  tones,  and  by  Stumpf  for  visual  stimuli. ^^ 
The  influence  of  respiration  is  mentioned  by 
Helmholtz :  **ich  erinnere  daran,  dass  selbst  die 
Athembewegungen  auf  das  Eigenlicht  der  Netz- 
haut  einwirken";  it  has  been  traced  also  by 
Lehmann  and  Slaughtcr.^^  And  within  the  last 
few  years  a  series  of  investigations,  carried  out 
in  Pillsbury's  laboratory,  has  emphasised  the 
correspondence  of  sensible  fluctuation  with  the 
Traube-Hering  wave  of  blood  pressure. ^^  Exner 
had  said,  in  1894  :  ''es  liegt  nahe,  als  Erklarungs- 
grund  aller  dieser  Erscheinun^en  vasomoto- 
rische  Ursachen  anzunehmen";  and  Pillsbury, 
in  1903,  would  explain  the  'fluctuations  of  atten- 
tion' as  "a  resultant  of  two  physiological  pro- 
cesses, of  the  degree  of  efficiency  of  the  cortical 
cells,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  state  of  excita- 
tion of  the  vasomotor  centre  on  the  other."  ^^ 
In  estimating  this  position,  I  feel  a  strong  in- 
clination to  shelter  myself  behind  Pace,  and  to  say 
simply :  "the  results  thus  obtained  are  obviously 
of  great  importance ;  and  they  are  certainly  open 


274  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

to  various  interpretations."^^  For  indeed  criti- 
cism at  this  time  and  in  this  place  is  impossible; 
it  must  be  criticism  of  detail,  —  of  the  interpreta- 
tion of  records,  of  the  differential  value  of  control 
experiments,  of  the  probability  of  rival  theories. 
Slaughter  uses  the  vasomotor  phenomena  in  one 
way;  but  Fechner,  and  Fick  and  Gurber,  and 
Lehmann,  and  now  Ferree  suggest  other  ways 
in  which  they  may  be  turned  to  theoretical  ac- 
count .^^  I  am  by  no  means  convinced  that 
Slaughter's  hypothesis  is  the  best. — 

Until  we  know  more  about  these  peripheral 
conditions  it  is,  I  think,  useless  to  appeal  to  the 
centre.  In  particular,  it  is  useless  to  raise  our 
third  question,  and  to  attempt  any  characterisa- 
tion of  possible  central  conditions.  There  are 
many  psychologists  who  have  a  predilection  for 
the  cortex ;  my  own  leaning  is  towards  the  sense- 
organ.  But  apart  from  that  —  or,  if  you  like, 
because  of  that !  —  I  believe  that  experimental 
psychology  has  always  made  most  progress  when 
it  has  worked  from  without  inwards:  **It  is 
a  healthy  instinct,"  I  have  said  elsewhere,  **that 
sends  us  back  and  back  again  to  the  channels 
of  sense,  as  we  seek  an  appreciation  of  the  ful- 
ness and  richness  of  the  mental  life."  I  do  not 
deny  that  the  cortex  is  concerned  in  the  '  fluctua- 
tions of  attention ' ;    no  one  at  the  present  time 


TEMPORAL  INSTABILITY  275 

can  make  such  denial.     But  I  look  for  explana- 
tion from  the  behaviour  of  the  sense-organs.^^ 

At  this  level  of  *  minimal  stimuli,'  then,  the  law 
of  temporal  instability  will  mean  that  the  pe- 
ripheral conditions  of  clearness  are  intermittent. 
Whether  the  central  predisposition  persists  or 
itself  oscillates,  during  peripheral  intermittence, 
is  an  open  question.  I  think  that  the  predispo- 
sition is  sustained.  Geissler  is  of  the  same 
opinion.  Even  Pace  writes  in  similar  vein. 
The  attention,  he  says,  '*must  undergo  a  change 
of  some  kind  when  the  stimulus  disappears.  .  .  . 
When  the  gray  ring  or  band  of  light  vanishes,  the 
attention  is  divided  between  the  memory-image 
of  that  which  has  just  disappeared  and  the  im- 
pression actually  received  from  the  general  field. 
Again,  while  it  may  be  said  that  the  attitude  of 
the  attention  in  both  phases  of  each  fluctuation 
is  one  of  expectancy,  it  is  also  true  that  the  term 
of  this  expectation  varies :  in  one  phase,  the  ob- 
server awaits  the  disappearance  of  the  stimulus, 
in  the  other,  he  looks  for  the  reappearance  of  the 
stimulus."  This  'change'  of  attention,  'divi- 
sion' of  attention,  shift  of  expectant  attitude,  — 
all  this  is  very  different  from  a  fluctuation  of 
attention,  a  more  or  less  periodic  rise  and  fall  of 
attentional  energy.     There  is  nothing  in  Pace's 


276  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

language  to  bear  out  the  Wundtian  statement: 
"die  Aufmerksamkeit  ist  ihrem  Wesen  nach  eine 
inter miUirende  Funct ion . "  ^* 

Let  me  add,  for  the  avoidance  of  misunder- 
standing, that  the  law  of  temporal  instability 
holds,  without  any  question,  for  central  predis- 
position in  the  large.  The 'instances  of  continued 
attention  that  I  gave  some  pages  back  were  ex- 
treme instances;  and  even  they,  as  I  said, 
**  illustrate  often  enough  the  labile,  instable  char- 
acter of  attention."*  But  these  jfluctuations  of 
the  total  attentive  consciousness  lie  beyond  our 
present  horizon. 

There  should,  now,  be  a  final  law  (7)  of  degree 
of  clearness,  —  a  law  that  would  stand  to  clear- 
ness as  Weber's  Law  stands  to  intensity  of  sen- 
sation, and  as  the  various  discriminative  constan- 
cies stand  to  the  qualitative,  temporal  and  spatial 
attributes.  "The  discovery  of  a  reliable  meas- 
ure of  the  attention,"  Klilpe  says,  "would  appear 
to  be  one  of  the  most  important  problems  that 
await  solution  by  the  experimental  psychology 
of  the  future."  ^^  The  discovery  has  not  yet  been 
made;  but  we  may  devote  a  little  space  to 
methods. 

There  seem  to  be  two  possible  ways,  a  direct 

*  P.  264. 


DEGREE  OF  CLEARNESS  277 

and  an  indirect,  of  *  measuring  attention,'  form- 
ing a  scale  of  clearness-degrees,  by  appeal  to  the 
attentive  consciousness.  The  first  or  direct  way 
is  to  utilise  the  observer's  introspections  of  clear- 
ness itself.  Suppose  that  an  observer  has  at- 
tained to  maximal  practice  in  some  field,  let  us 
say,  of  discriminative  sensitivity.  Maximal  prac- 
tice may,  for  experimental  purposes,  be  con- 
sidered a  constant.  Suppose,  again,  that  we  have 
arranged  a  series  of  distracting  stimuli,  homo- 
geneous in  kind  but  graded  in  complexity,  such 
that  we  are  able  to  reduce  the  observer's  per- 
centage of  right  cases  from  100  to  95,  90,  85  .  .  . 
according  to  the  distraction  employed.  It  is 
necessary  that  the  action  of  the  distractors  be 
constant ;  and  it  is  necessary  that  they  be  of  the 
same  kind,  and  therefore  exert  an  influence  which 
differs  only,  and  differs  measurably,  in  degree. 
Having  secured  these  conditions,  we  should  let 
the  observer  decide  whether  the  clearness  of 
conscious  contents  was  distinguishably  different 
under  a  5  per  cent,  and  a  10  per  cent,  distraction, 
or  under  a  5  per  cent,  and  a  15  per  cent,  distrac- 
tion, or  again  under  an  80  per  cent,  and  an  85  per 
cent,  distraction,  and  so  on,  all  through  the  series. 
We  should  thus  finally  obtain  a  scale  of  notice- 
ably different  clearnesses  paralleled  by  a  scale  of 
measured  amounts  of  distracting  stimulus;    we 


278  THE   LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

should  have  the  materials  for  formulating  our 
law;  we  should  have  solved  the  problem  of 
measurement  of  attention. 

With  this  idea  in  mind,  I  set  a  number  of  my 
advanced  students  to  work,  years  ago,  upon  the 
preliminary  question  of  the  distractor.  We  dis- 
covered some  interesting  things :  that  distraction 
may  spur  instead  of  distracting;  that  intermit- 
tent distractions,  the  ordinary  '  intellectual  opera- 
tions,' are  unreliable;  that  odours  are  admirably 
constant  distracting  material,  —  if  only  they 
could  be  measured  !  and  so  forth.  But  we  got  no 
farther;  and  no  one  else  has  got  any  farther  by 
that  road.  Nevertheless,  I  am  not  yet  persuaded 
that  the  road  is  altogether  impracticable,  and  we 
are  now  making  a  renew^ed  attempt  to  open  it  up.^® 

The  other,  indirect  way  of  measuring  atten- 
tion is  to  measure  the  concomitant  sensations  of 
strain,  the  'effort'  of  attention.  "Wir  besitzen 
an  gewissen  begleitenden  GefUhlen  einer  gros- 
seren  oder  geringeren  Anstrengung  .  .  .  ein  Mit- 
tel,  uns  zu  verge wissern,  ob  unsere  Disposition  in 
zwei  Fallen  annahernd  dieselbe  sei";  that  is  a 
suggestion  of  Stumpf's.  May  we  not  generalise 
it,  and  argue  that  different  degrees  of  effort  run 
parallel  to  the  distinguishable  degrees  of  clear- 
ness ?  Unfortunately,  no !  In  the  first  place, 
the  concomitant  effort  is  an  indication,  not  of 


DEGREE  OF  CLEARNESS  279 

degree  of  attention,  but  rather  of  inertia  of  atten- 
tion; strained  attention  is  attention  under  dif- 
ficulties; we  attend  best  when  effort  is  small. 
May  we,  then,  reverse  the  parallelism,  and  make 
degree  of  effort  an  inverse  measure  of  degree  of 
clearness  ?  No,  not  that  either  !  For,  secondly, 
experiment  has  shown  that  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances attention  is  maximal  when  we  are 
slightly  *  distracted ' ;  a  modicum  of  effort  is 
favourable  to  clearness.  In  a  word,  the  relation 
of  effort  to  degree  of  attention  is  equivocal ;  even 
if  we  could  accurately  measure  effort,  we  should 
have  no  measurement  of  clearness.^^ 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  because  we  are  as 
yet  unable  to  measure  attention,  that  we  may 
not  devise  objective  tests  which  shall  inform  us, 
on  the  one  hand,  of  gross  differences  in  attentional 
degree  or  attentional  capacity  as  between  ob- 
server and  observer,  and  on  the  other  hand  of 
approximate  constancy  or  marked  fluctuation  of 
attention  in  the  same  observer.  Four  kinds  of 
test  offer  themselves  at  once.  We  may  deter- 
mine the  range  of  attention,  simultaneous  or 
successive ;  we  may  have  recourse  to  tests  of  sen- 
sitivity and  sensible  discrimination ;  we  may 
determine  associability,  the  rate  and  stability  of 
association    and    reproduction ;     and    we    may 


280  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

measure  the  promptness  of  voluntary  action,  the 
time  of  simple  reaction.  The  application  of 
such  tests  is  by  no  means  easy,  and  I  imagine 
that  it  can  rarely  be  direct.  The  test  will  rather 
appear  as  an  incidental  feature  of  some  more 
general  investigation ;  or  it  will  be  made  an  end 
in  itself,  and  its  result  then  carried  over  by 
analogy  to  investigations  whose  main  purpose  is 
of  a  different  nature. 

A  good  deal  of  work  has  already  been  done. 
Binet  subjected  two  groups  of  school  children, 
classed  by  their  teachers  as  intelligent  and  unin- 
tellige;it,  to  a  long  series  of  tests:  the  children 
were  required  to  discriminate  sesthesiometric  im- 
pressions, to  count  dots  by  eye  and  sounds  by  ear, 
to  memorise  letters,  to  read  a  word  exposed  by 
the  movement  of  an  instantaneous  shutter,  to 
perform  simultaneous  additions,  to  correct  proofs, 
to  make  reactions,  etc.  I  think  that,  on  the 
whole,  the  outcome  of  the  inquiry  justified  the 
time  and  care  devoted  to  it ;  but  the  results,  as 
is  only  natural,  leave  us  in  doubt  as  to  the  per- 
manent value  of  the  individual  tests  and  their 
precise  relation  to  the  attention.  Janet,  taking 
the  cue  from  his  experience  with  hysterical  sub- 
jects, proposes  a  perimetrical  test  of  the  degree  of 
attention.  Of  a  somewhat  different  order  are 
the  proposals  of  Oehrn  and  Henri,  to  measure 


TESTS  OF  ATTENTION  281 

attention  by  reference  to  mean  variation,  and  of 
Wiersma  and  Pillsbury,  to  utilise  for  the  same 
end  the  duration  of  noticeability  (or  the  ratio  of 
the  periods  of  noticeability  and  unnoticeability) 
in  experiments  on  fluctuation.  Oehrn's  sugges- 
tion, in  particular,  may  very  well  prove  to  be  of 
value,  though  it  is  clear  that  detailed  analysis 
of  conditions,  a  careful  sifting  out  of  contributory 
factors,  must  precede  its  application.^^ 

The  number  of  possible  tests  is  thus  very  great. 
And  since  all  psychological  observation  is  done 
in  the  state  of  attention,  and  distracting  stimuli 
may  always  be  'thrown  in,'  there  is  no  single 
form  of  experimental  procedure  that  cannot  be 
made  to  afford  a  rough  gauge  of  concentration. 
It  would  be  strange  if,  out  of  this  multitude  of 
possibilities,  there  should  be  no  positive  gain  for 
psychology.  There  will  be,  —  if  analysis  is 
pushed  far  enough,  and  if  recourse  is  had  to  the 
observer's  introspection ;  otherwise,  we  shall 
remain  upon  the  plane  of  the  roughly  practical. 
I  gave,  at  the  beginning  of  this  discussion,  a 
schematic  outline  of  a  psychological  distraction- 
method.  I  remark,  in  conclusion,  that  it  will 
be  wise  to  combine  such  a  method  with  the  tech- 
nique of  the  method  of  expression.  I  have  no 
faith  in  the  power  of  the  expression-instruments 
to  tell  us  of  the  nature  and  number  of  the  affec- 


282  THE  LAWS  OF  ATTENTION:  II 

tive  qualities.  But  they  may  help  —  one  never 
knows  !  —  towards  an  objective  differentiation 
of  the  conscious  degrees  of  clearness.^^ 

I  am  at  the  end  of  my  review.  I  have  done 
my  best  to  make  the  review  complete,  on  our 
elementary  level,  and  to  disentangle  the  really 
elementary  problems  from  the  problems  of  the 
total  attentive  consciousness.  In  the  next  Lec- 
ture we  must  try  to  gather  up  the  critical  threads 
and  to  weave  them  into  a  pattern ;  we  must  con- 
sider the  status  and  the  relations  of  affection  and 
attention  within  a  systematic  psychology. 


VIII 

AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 


LECTURE    VIII 

AFFECTION   AND   ATTENTION 

THROUGHOUT  our  discussion  of  attention, 
I  have  been  urging  that  it  is  advisable,  in  an 
elementary  psychology,  to  shift  the  emphasis  from 
total  attentive  state  to  sensation  and  the  attribute 
of  clearness;  the  discussion  has  centred  about  that 
suggestion.  Our  treatment  of  the  affective  pro- 
cesses, on  the  other  hand,  was  almost  wholly 
critical.  Construction  is  always  more  difficult 
than  criticism,  —  even  when  it  takes  the  very 
modest  form  of  making  up  one's  mind  in  the 
face  of  rival  theories.  But  you  have  the  right 
to  look  here  also  for  some  positive  suggestion ; 
and,  although  I  have  nothing  original  to  say,  I 
shall  accordingly  begin  this  final  Lecture  with 
a  brief  outline  of  an  elementary  psychology  of 
feeling.  Let  me  assure  you  again,  as  I  have 
assured  you  before,  that  my  position  is  tentative, 
provisional,  not  fixed  and  dogmatic. 

We  find,  in  the  history  of  psychology,  two  op- 
posed views  of  feeling,  views  that  I  shall  dis- 
tinguish as  the  intellectual  and  the  affectional. 

285 


286  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

The  intellectual  view  considers  feeling  as  a  form 
of  cognition ;  the  affectional  gives  it  an  inde- 
pendent place  among  the  mental  faculties.  On 
the  score  of  formal  expression,  the  intellectual 
view  is  undoubtedly  the  older;  human  thought, 
in  the  early  stages  of  its  activity,  is  prone  to 
rationalise,  and  for  a  long  time  —  for  a  time, 
indeed,  that  extends  well  into  the  modern  period 
—  it  was  also  dominant.  But  the  affectional 
view  crosses  it  at  many  points;  and  when  we 
come  to  Kant,  the  traditional  status  of  the  two 
theories  has  completely  changed,  and  the  affec- 
tional has  gained  the  day.  The  faculty  of  feel- 
ing is  added,  as  intermediary,  to  the  faculties 
of  knowledge  and  of  desire. 

Kant's  authority  was,  of  course,  very  great; 
and  the  affectional  view  of  feeling  held  its  place 
in  the  writings  of  those  later  psychologists  who 
escaped  the  influence  of  Herbart.  Fortunately 
or  unfortunately,  however,  the  main  current  of 
modern  psychology  takes  its  source  from  the 
intellectualism  of  Herbart  and  the  sensationalism 
of  contemporary  physiology.  Hence  —  if  I  may 
change  the  figure  —  experimental  psychology 
had,  from  the  outset,  a  strong  intellectual  bias, 
a  definite  leaning  towards  Gefuhlsempfindungen 
or  a  GefiXhlston  der  Empjindung,  We  saw,  in 
an  earlier  Lecture,  that  Wundt  at  first  resisted 


HISTORICAL  VIEWS  OF  FEELING       287 

the  pressure  of  this  tendency,  but  later  for  a 
while  succumbed  to  it.* 

In  a  word,  then,  the  intellectual  view  of  feel- 
ing has  been  favoured  in  two  ways  :  by  the  inertia 
of  a  settled  philosophical  tradition,  and  by  the 
nature  of  the  sources  from  which  modern  psy- 
chology derives/  But  the  tradition,  after  all, 
merely  illustrates  an  inherent  onesidedness  of 
reflective  thought ;  and  we  must  remember  that 
it  was  successfully  overcome  by  the  psychology 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  As  for  Herbart  and 
the  physiologists,  it  is  —  for  our  immediate  pur- 
pose —  nothing  more  than  an  historical  accident 
that  the  succession  of  the  faculty-systems  should 
have  devolved  upon  a  rigorous  intellectualism. 
What  is  significant,  again,  is  this :  that  modern 
psychology,  just  like  the  psychology  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  has  finally  revolted  against  intel- 
lectualism, so  that  the  majority  of  present-day 
psychologists  recognise  the  independence  of  the 
affective  processes,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  *  affec- 
tive tone'  has  well-nigh  disappeared. 

But,  you  may  ask,  has  this  second  movement 
for  affective  independence  really  accomplished 
anything  ?  Have  we  not  ourselves  admitted  and 
emphasised  the  unsettled  state  of  the  psychology 
of   feeling.^     Are    not    the    opposed    camps,    of 

*  p.  133. 


288  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

majority  and  of  minority  alike,  split  into  num- 
berless factions  ?  —  I  will  try  to  answer  these 
questions:  premising  only  that  ground  once 
gained,  in  the  history  of  a  science,  is  never  wholly 
lost,  and  that  our  modern  movement  could  not 
have  culminated  so  quickly,  had  we  not  had  the 
example  of  the  eighteenth  century  before  our 
eyes.     And  my  answer  will  be  twofold. 

Do  not  let  us  forget,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
physiological  tradition  is  unbroken.  The  theo- 
ries of  Bourdon  and  von  Frey  can  trace  their 
descent,  in  the  spirit  if  not  in  the  letter,  from  a 
long  line  of  workers  in  *  physiological  psychology ' ; 
and  the  Gefuhlsempfindungeyi,  w^hatever  may  be 
thought  of  them  by  the  descriptive  psychologist, 
will  not  easily  yield  their  claim  on  the  side  of 
explanation.  Sensational  theories  of  feeling  we 
shall  have  always  with  us.  But  let  us  reflect, 
secondly,  that  a  period  which  is  sterile  in  obser- 
vation is,  invariably,  fruitful  in  speculation. 
When,  a  few  years  ago,  I  was  classifying  the  con- 
tents of  the  leading  psychological  journals,  I  was 
amazed  at  the  small  number  of  the  experimental 
studies  of  feeling.^  I  had  known,  as  we  all 
know,  that  a  marked  interest  in  feeling  is  of  quite 
recent  growth ;  I  had  not  realised  how  profound 
was  the  lack  of  interest  that  preceded.  No  won- 
der, then,  that  every  psychologist  has  his  own 


THE  STATUS  OF  AFFECTIOX  289 

hypothesis ;  no  wonder  that  no  two  psychologists 
can  agree  upon  *  the  definition  of  feeling ' !  ^ 
We  have  a  fairly  exact  parallel  in  the  history  of 
psychophysics.  There  was  a  time,  in  that  too, 
when  all  the  world  was  writing  theory  and  no- 
body was  doing  work,  —  the  time  when  Merkel 
prayed  aloud  that  his  own  experiments  might 
lead,  not  to  "weitere  theoretische  Discussionen 
von  Seiten  der  vielen  Gegner,"  ^  but  to  more 
accurate  tests,  made  by  better  men.  We  have 
come  out  of  this  sterile  period  in  psychophysics, 
and  we  shall  come  out  of  it  also  in  the  psychology 
of  feeling.  For  a  while  yet  we  shall  go  on  wran- 
gling about  opinions;  but  every  experimental 
study  helps  to  clear  the  air,  and  as  observations 
multiply,  theory  will  reshape  itself  to  accord 
with  fact. 

My  personal  opinion  is,  as  I  have  shown  plainly 
enough,  that  affection  must  be  given  elemental 
rank  in  consciousness,  as  a  process  coordinate 
with  sensation.  I  rely,  primarily,  upon  the  lack 
of  the  attribute  of  clearness;  all  sensations  may 
become  clear,  while  an  affection  —  however  pro- 
longed or  intensive  —  is  never  clear,  never  comes 
to  the  focus  of  attention.  I  rely  also  upon  the 
criterion  of  '  movement  between  opposites  * ; 
it  seems  to  me  that  conscious  opposition  is  al- 
ways a  matter  of  affection,  never  of  sensation. 


290  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

And  I  rely,  to  some  extent,  upon  the  concurrence 
of  these  distinguishing  characters,  and  upon  their 
implication  —  or,  at  least,  suggestion  —  of  cer- 
tain other  differences  between  the  two  modes  of 
conscious  process.  On  the  w4iole,  I  am  con- 
vinced that  a  generic  difference  can  be  made  out, 
in  the  adult  human  mind,  between  sensation  and 
affection.  I  therefore  believe  that  Stumpf's 
proposal,  to  treat  affective  processes  as  if  they 
were  sensations,  to  bring  all  the  machinery  of 
sensation-method  to  bear  upon  the  feelings,  is 
a  mistaken  proposal ;  I  do  not  think  that  it  is 
worth  while  to  assume  after-images  and  memory- 
images,  and  contrasts  and  inductions,  in  the 
sphere  of  feeling;  What  do  you  gain  by  the 
assumption,  if  you  cannot  find  the  facts  ? 

On  the  question  of  the  number  of  the  affec- 
tive qualities,  I  have  no  choice  but  to  abide  by 
my  experimental  results.  The  situation  has  its 
humorous  side;  for  I  have  tried,  I  suppose,  as 
hard  as  any  one  to  discover  the  pluralists'  variety 
—  with  *  vorgef asste  Meinung '  and  *  leere  Schab- 
lone '  and  '  Dogma  der  Lust-  Unlusttheorie '  and 
'  vollig  haltlose  Behauptung'  all  the  while  buzzing 
about  my  ears.  I  do  not  know  why  Wundt 
should  be  so  severe  upon  those  who  differ  from 
him,  seeing  that  his  own  opinion  has  more  than 
once  changed,  and  that  what  he  himself  terms  the 


A  THEORY  OF  FEELIN"?  ^^^ 

*'erste,  vorlaufige  Darstellung  des  dreidimy'  ^"^ 
alen  Systems  der  Gefiihle  "  ^  was  not  given  to^^^^' 
world  until  1896.  I  do  not  think,  either,  that  th2 
*  Lust-Unlusttheorie '  is  a  dogma.  It  has  been  a 
dogma;  it  was  allowed  to  become  a  dogma  by 
the  supineness,  not  of  the  dualists  (for  we  were  all 
dualists  together),  but  of  the  experimentalists  in 
general;  and,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  this  dog- 
matic slumber  of  experimental  psychology  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  current  hypertrophy  of  theory. 
But  to  charge  the  dualist  with  dogmatism,  in  the 
year  1908,  is  simply  to  charge  him  with  accep- 
tance, in  a  modern  version,  of  the  traditional  doc- 
trine of  pleasure-pain.  Is  a  man  dogmatic  every 
time  that  his  experiments  lead  him  into  agree- 
ment with  Aristotle  ? 

I  will  now  venture  to  sketch  a  theory  of  feel- 
ing which  seems  to  me  to  be  sufficiently  plausible, 
and  which  serves  to  round  out,  by  explanation, 
the  remarks  of  the  preceding  paragraphs.^  It 
is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  material  of  con- 
sciousness, the  stuff  out  of  which  mind  is  made, 
is  ultimately  homogeneous,  all  of  a  piece.  Let 
us  make  that  supposition.  The  affections  then 
appear  —  I  do  not  like  to  say,  as  *  undeveloped 
sensations,'  for  an  undeveloped  sensation  is  still 
a  sensation ;  but  at  any  rate  as  mental  processes 
of  the  same  general  kind  as  sensations,  and  as 


290       aff;»^ection  and  attention 

And  I  K  processes  that  might,  under  favourable 
of  tKiitions,  have  developed  into  sensations.  I 
iiiazard  the  guess  that  the  *  peripheral  organs' 
of  feeling  are  the  free  afferent  nerve-endings  dis- 
tributed to  the  various  tissues  of  the  body ;  * 
and  I  take  these  free  endings  to  represent  a 
lower  level  of  development  than  the  specialised 
receptive  organ.  Hence  we  have  peripheral 
organs  of  sense,  but  no  'organs,'  in  the  strict 
meaning  of  the  term,  for  affective  processes. 
Had  mental  development  been  carried  farther, 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  might  have 
become  sensatrbns,  —  in  all  likelihood  would 
have  been  differentiated,  each  of  them,  into  a 
large  number  of  sensations.  Had  our  physical 
development  been  carried  farther,  we  might  have 
had  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  number  of 
internal  sense-organs. 

What  does  this  theory  explain  ?  It  explains, 
first,  the  obscurity  of  feeling,  the  absence  of  the 
attribute  of  clearness.  Affective  processes  are 
processes  whose  development  has  been  arrested ; 
they  have  not  attained,  and  now  they  never  can 
attain,  to  clear  consciousness.  Affective  expe- 
rience is  the  obscure,  indiscriminable  correlate 
of  a  medley  of  widely  diffused  excitatory  pro- 

*  We  must,  of  course,  except  the  free  nerve-endings  at  the 
periphery  of  the  body,  which  are  probably  the  'organs'  of  pain. 
I  do  not  think  that  the  exception  hurts  the  theory. 


A  THEORY  OF  FEELING  293 

cesses.'^  The  theory  explains,  secondly,  the 
movement  of  affective  process  between  opposites, 
and  the  relation  of  this  movement  to  the  health 
and  harm,  the  weal  and  woe  of  the  organism.^ 
For  the  excitatory  processes  will  report  the  *tone' 
of  the  bodily  systems  from  which  they  proceed, 
and  the  report  will  vary,  and  can  only  vary,  be- 
tween *  good '  and  '  bad.'  At  this  point,  of  course, 
the  theory  takes  account  of  *  mixed  feelings.' 
It  explains,  thirdly,  the  lack  of  qualitative  dif- 
ferentiation within  pleasantness-unpleasantness. 
The  report  of  *good'  or  *bad'  may  show  varia- 
tion in  degree,  but  cannot  change  in  kind.  And, 
lastly,  the  theory  explains  the  introspective  resem- 
blance between  affections  and  organic  sensations. 
Genetically,  the  two  sets  of  processes  are  near 
akin ;  and  it  is  natural  that  they  should  be  in- 
timately blended  in  experience. 

I  shall  not  attempt  further  details.  If  the 
theory  appeals  to  you,  you  will  work  out  details, 
applications  and  corollaries,  for  yourselves.  If 
it  does  not,  you  will  pursue  some  other  path,  — 
and  we  shall  see  presently  who  has  made  the  wiser 
choice.  A  distinguished  physicist  remarked  the 
other  day  that  theories  are  matters,  not  of  creed, 
but  of  policy;  ®  and  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is 
better  policy  to  look  at  the  affective  processes 
in  the  manner  here  outlined  than  to  think  of 


294  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

them  as  apperceptive  reactions,  or  as  centrally 
aroused  concomitant  sensations,  or  as  indices  of 
the  state  of  nutrition  of  the  cerebral  cortex,  or  as 
symptoms  of  the  readiness  of  central  discharge. 
But  every  one  cannot  be  right ;  and  where  our 
positive  knowledge  is  practically  nil,  there  is  no 
disgrace  in  being  wrong. 

I  pass  on,  then,  to  another  question.  Let  us 
take  it  as  agreed  that  affection  is  an  independent 
mental  process,  inherently  obscure,  and  evincing 
a  qualitative  duality.  What,  now,  is  the  rela- 
tion of  affection  to  attention.? 

When  I  read  Ebbinghaus'  chapter  on  Atten- 
tion in  1902,  I  was  greatly  surprised  at  the  men- 
tion, among  the  'Bedingungen  der  Aufm^rk- 
samkeit,'  of  the  affective  value  of  impressions. 
"Diejenigen  Ursachen,  die  einen  stark  lustbe- 
tonten  oder  unlustbetonten  Bewusstseinsinhalt 
zur  Folge  haben,  setzen  diesen  Inhalt  leichter 
durch  als  andere  Ursachen  ihre  indifferenten 
AVirkungen."  I  had  supposed  that  *  interest' 
still  figured  as  a  condition  of  attention  only  in 
quite  popular  psychologies;  yet  Ebbinghaus 
said  in  1902,  and  repeats  in  1905,  that  "Interesse 
.  .  .  besonders  haufig  ein  starkeres  Hervortre- 
ten  [eines]  Eindrucks  in  der  Seele  bewirkt." 
This  doctrine  implies,  first,  that  feeling  precedes 


ATTENTION  AND  INTEREST  295 

attention,  that  sensory  clearness  follows  in  the 
train  of  pleasantness-unpleasantness.  Indeed, 
the  point  is  explicit;  for  interest  hewirht,  effects 
or  induces  clearness,  and  interest  (Ebbinghaus  is 
properly  careful  to  define  it)  is  itself  **  [eine] 
Lust,  die  hervorgebracht  wird  durch  das  har- 
monische  Zusammengehen  eines  gegenwartig 
der  Seele  nahegelegten  Eindrucks  mit  friiher 
erworbenen,  jetzt  durch  ilin  geweckten  Vorstel- 
lungen."  ^^  Pleasure,  then, comes  first,  and  atten- 
tion afterwards.  The  doctrine  implies,  secondly, 
that  certain  of  the  conditions  of  attention  are 
non-affective,  that  sensory  clearness  may  be 
established  in  the  absence  of  pleasantness- 
unpleasantness.  On  the  former  issue,  Ebbing- 
haus comes  into  direct  conflict  with  Stout.  ''The 
assumption  that  attention  depends  on  pleasure- 
pain  seems  to  have  no  suflScient  basis.  .  .  .  In- 
terest and  attention  do  not  seem  to  be  related  as 
antecedent  and  consequent,  but  rather  as  differ- 
ent aspects  of  the  same  concrete  fact.  .  .  . 
Feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain  ...  do  not  de- 
termine attention  as  antecedent  conditions."  ^^ 
On  the  latter,  he  comes  into  conflict  with  Wundt's 
well-known  definition  of  feeling  as  "the  reaction 
of  apperception  upon  sensations."  ^^ 

Ebbinghaus  supports  his  assertion,  that  atten- 
tion is  conditioned  upon  feeling,  by  reference  to 


296  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

incidents  of  everyday  life :  the  attraction  of  a 
pretty  face  or  a  bad  accident,  the  fascination 
of  anything  connected  with  a  man's  particular 
hobby,  etc.;  he  offers  no  experimental  evidence. 
Now  Stout  and  Pillsbury  have  analysed  a  num- 
ber of  precisely  such  instances,  and  have  been 
led  to  precisely  the  opposite  conclusion.  Stout 
I  have  already  quoted.  Pillsbury  declares,  in 
the  same  sense  :  **les  choses  ne  sont  interessantes 
que  parce  que  nous  portons  sur  elles  notre  atten- 
tion, et  nous  ne  portons  pas  sur  elles  notre  atten- 
tion parce  qu'elles  sont  interessantes."  ^^  Unless, 
then,  there  are  outstanding  facts,  which  refuse 
to  be  analysed  in  this  way,  we  must,  I  think, 
decide  against  Ebbinghaus.  Personally,  I  con- 
fess that,  after  the  discussion  as  before,  I  find  it 
difficult  to  take  his  position  seriously. 

The  second  question  that  he  raises  for  us  is, 
on  the  contrary,  of  very  great  systematic  impor- 
tance. Do  we  ever  attend  without  feeling .? 
Or  is  it  rather  true  that  whenever  we  attend  we 
feel,  and  w^henever  we  feel  we  attend  ? 

In  so  far  as  Ebbinghaus'  treatment  implies 
that  we  may  attend  without  feeling,  I  am  in 
agreement  with  it.  I  am  afraid,  however,  that 
that  bare  statement  is  misleading;  and  I  shall 
accordingly  try  to  give  it  a  systematic  setting. 
Consider  the  attentive  consciousness  in  the  large  : 


ATTENTION  AND  WILL  297 

what  is  its  place  in  a  psychological  system? 
Wundt,  of  course,  places  it  under  the  heading  of 
'will.'  "Die  Apperception  ist  gleichzeitig  ele- 
mentarer  Willensact  und  constituirenderBestand- 
theil  aller  Willensvorgange."  ^*  Stumpf  takes  a 
similar  view,  though  he  seems  to  have  felt  a 
difficulty  (as  Wundt  does  not)  in  bringing  in- 
voluntary and  voluntary  attention  under  a 
single  heading.^^  Ebbinghaus  finds  that,  in 
voluntary  attention,  "der  Gesammtzustand 
durchaus  gleich  dem  .  .  .  als  Wollen  beschrieb- 
enen  ist;"  but  he  distinguishes  involuntary  from 
voluntary  attention,  as  he  distinguishes  Trieb 
from  Wille.  Since,  however,  will  is  a  develop- 
ment from  impulse,  —  "der  Wille  ist  der  voraus- 
schauend  gewordene  Trieb,"  —  the  distinction 
is  merely  terminological/® 

Other  psychologists  have  held  other  opinions. 
I  cannot  here  discuss  them ;  I  can  only  say  that, 
so  far  as  I  see,  the  term  'will'  affords  the  best 
general  title  for  tw^o  great  groups  of  psychologi- 
cal facts :  the  facts  of  attention  and  the  facts  of 
action.  There  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt  that 
these  two  groups  are  intimately  related,  that  ac- 
tion is  simply  a  special  case  of  attention.  But, 
if  that  is  the  case,  we  may  use  our  knowledge  of 
either  one  to  throw  light  upon  the  other.  Thus, 
psychologists  and  moralists  alike  have  long  dis- 


/ 


298  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

puted  whether  'pleasure  and  pain'  are  the  sole 
conditions  of  action.  I  do  not  consider  that 
they  can  be  numbered  at  all  among  the  condi- 
tions of  action ;  I  believe  that  the  conditions 
of  action  are  to  be  learned  from  a  study  of  the 
conditions  of  attention ;  and  I  should  analyse 
the  alleged  positive  instances  on  the  lines  of 
Stout's  and  Pillsbury's  analyses  in  the  sphere  of 
attention.  On  the  other  side,  our  immediate 
question  —  *  Do  we  ever  attend  without  feel- 
ing ?'  —  is  answered  as  soon  as  we  appeal  to 
action.  Do  we  ever  act  without  feeling  ?  Very 
certainly  we  do  !  Actions  may  be  cla-ssified  in 
various  ways,  and  I  shall  not  try  to  impose  upon 
you  a  classification  of  my  own ;  but  we  shall 
agree  that  there  are  many  types  of  action,  reflex 
and  automatic  and  ideomotor  and  what  not, 
that  are  performed  without  the  arousal  of  pleas- 
antness-unpleasantness in  consciousness.  In  just 
the  same  way,  as  it  seems  to  me,  may  we  have  an 
automatic  or  instinctive  or  mechanised  attention 
that  is  altogether  free  of  feeling.  No  one  will 
deny  that  pleasantness  and  unpleasantness  ap- 
pear often  and  often  again  —  'besonders  haufig,' 
as  Ebbinghaus  says  ^^  —  as  the  accompaniments 
of  attention ;  it  would  be  strange  if  our  experience 
were  otherwise,  since  all  the  conditions  of  atten- 
tion are  at  the  same  time  conditions  of  a  powerful 


ATTENTION  WITHOUT  FEELING       299 

impression  of  the  nervous  system.  The  connec- 
tion is,  indeed,  so  obvious  and  so  widespread 
that  it  is  only  natural  to  regard  it  as  universal; 
I  have  myself  for  many  years  subscribed  to  this 
belief,  and  have  taught  that  affection  and  atten- 
tion are  simply  back  and  front,  obverse  and  re- 
verse, of  the  same  consciousness.  But,  after  all, 
views  must  give  way  before  observations;  and 
though  I  have,  for  clearness'  sake,  thrown  our 
discussion  into  systematic  form,  my  reliance 
throughout  is,  as  you  will  have  understood,  upon 
observed  instances  of  feelingless  attention.  Now 
that  I  have  once  noticed  such  cases,  they  prove 
to  be  of  fairly  common  occurrence;  and  I  am 
sure  that  you  will  have  no  especial  difficulty  in 
discovering  their  like :  —  only  you  must  not  look 
for  them  in  the  professional  spirit,  but  keep  your 
eyes  open  to  mark  them  as  they  come. 

You  may,  perhaps,  demur  to  my  proposal 
that  all  these  phenomena  of  attention  and  action 
be  brought  under  the  heading  of  'will.'  Reflex 
actions  and  instinctive  attentions  are,  indeed, 
from  one  point  of  view,  the  antipodes  of  will. 
If,  however,  I  adopt  the  term,  it  is  because  I 
accept  the  genetic  theory  of  Wundt  and  Ward. 
I  believe,  with  Wundt,  that  '*die  zweckmiissigen 
Reflexbewegungen  stabil  und  mechanisch  ge- 
wordene    Willenshandiungen     sind";^^     I    be- 


300  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

lieve,  with  Ward,  that  ''volition  or  something 
analogous  to  it"  has,  in  the  race  as  in  the  indi- 
vidual, invariably  "preceded  habit"  ;^^  and  I 
believe,  with  Cope,  that  even  "the  automatic 
'involuntary'  movements  of  the  heart,  intes- 
tines, reproductive  systems,  etc.,  were  organised 
in  successive  states  of  consciousness."  ^^  Argu- 
ment, on  so  large  a  subject,  is  here  out  of  the  ques- 
tion; but  I  am  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  recite 
my  credo.  And  the  more  strongly  you  react 
against  it,  the  more  earnestly  do  I  beg  you  to  give 
it  a  fair  examination.^^  — 

So  far,  then,  the  relation  between  affection 
and  attention  is  hardly  more  than  external. 
Affection  reports  the  tone  of  the  great  bodily  sys- 
tems that  lack  organs  of  sense ;  attention  means 
the  clarifying  of  sensory  contents  under  the  in- 
fluence of  powerful  nervous  stimuli.  The  or- 
ganism may,  with  time,  become  adapted  to  these 
attentional  stimuli,  —  so  that,  while  the  corre- 
sponding sensations  appear,  at  least  momentarily, 
at  the  conscious  focus,  there  is  no  felt  shock  or 
tilt  of  the  whole  living  body,  no  concomitant 
pleasantness  or  unpleasantness.  We  may  at- 
tend without  feeling.  May  we,  on  the  other 
hand,  feel  without  attending.?  Can  there  be  a 
change  in  general  organic  tone,  suflSciently 
marked   to   reveal   itself   as   feeling,    while   the 


NO  FEELING  WITHOUT  ATTENTION     301 

sensory  contents  of  consciousness  are  still  ob- 
scure ?  Wundt  answers  this  question  with  a 
decided  affirmative.  **  [Die  Gefiihle]  konnen 
auch  dann,  wenn  ihre  Vorstellungsgrundhige 
ausserordentlich  dunkel  bleibt,  eine  relativ  grosse 
Intensitat  gewinnen."  ^^  And  again:  *'erhebt 
sich  irgendein  psychischer  Vorgang  uber  die 
Schwelle  des  Bewusstseins,  so  pflegen  die  Ge- 
fuhlselemente  desselben,  sobald  sie  die  hinreich- 
ende  Starke  besitzen,  zuerst  merkbar  zu  werden, 
so  dass  sie  sich  bereits  energiscli  in  den  Blick- 
punkt  des  Bewusstseins  drangcn,  ehe  nocli  von 
den  Vorstellungselementen  irgend  etwas  v/ahr- 
genommen  wird."  ^^  Here,  I  think,  Wundt  is 
working  with  'feelings'  where  he  should  be 
working  with  organic  sensations  and  pleasant- 
ness-unpleasantness;  and,  in  so  far  forth,  his 
statements  are  unconvincing.  But  this  objec- 
tion does  not  fully  meet  the  issue ;  we  have  to 
consider  the  question  on  its  psychological  merits. 
Notice,  then,  that  the  question  itself  takes  two 
forms,  a  popular  and  a  scientific.  I  gave  them 
just  now  as  if  they  were  interchangeable ;  but 
a  very  little  reflection  brings  out  their  difference. 
The  popular  form  of  the  question  is :  '  May  we 
feel  without  attending.^'  And  the  implication 
here  is  that  attention,  the  attentive  consciousness, 
is  something  sporadic  and  occasional;   that  the 


302  AFFECTION   AND  ATTENTION 

two-level  consciousness  alternates  with  a  one- 
level,  wholly  'inattentive'  consciousness.  Now 
it  is  possible  that  this  state  of  inattention  exists, 
though  I  confess  myself  sceptical  in  the  matter; 
I  doubt  w^hether  inattention,  in  the  waking  life, 
is  not  always  'attention  to  something  else.' ^^ 
But,  at  all  events,  I  do  not  think  it  likely  that 
any  one  will  argue  for  the  affective  character 
of  inattention ;  the  very  word  suggests  a  state  of 
indifference. 

In  its  second  and  scientific  form  the  question 
asks  whether  the  obscure  contents  of  a  two-level 
consciousness  may  be  as  strongly  'toned'  as 
the  clear.  Wundt  declares  that  they  may;  my 
own  analysis  leads  me  to  the  opposite  conclu- 
sion. I  grant  that  we  attend  without  feeling; 
and  this  admission  seems  to  me  to  bring  with  it 
a  very  welcome  'loosening  up'  of  systematic 
psychology.  But  I  cannot  grant  that  —  in  the 
sense  of  this  paragraph  —  we  feel  without  at- 
tending. I  incline  rather  to  find  a  fairly  close 
parallel  between  degree  of  clearness  and  degree 
of  pleasantness-unpleasantness,  and  thus  to 
regard  the  relation  between  affection  and  atten- 
tion, on  this  side,  not  as  external,  but  as  intrinsic. 
Wundt  has  missed  the  organic  sensations  alto- 
gether; and  we,  who  emphasise  them,  must 
ourselves  be  careful  not  to  confuse  the  clearness 


FEELING  AS  REACTION  303 

of  a  sensory  fusion  either  with  qualitative  articu- 
lation or  with  definiteness  of  localisation.  Bear- 
ing this  caution  in  mind,  you  will  surely  agree 
that,  whenever  we  are  moved  and  stirred  to  feel- 
ing, the  sensible  factors  in  the  total  process  are 
relatively  clear. ^^ 

It  is  now  necessary  to  go  back  a  little  way, 
in  order  to  remove  a  possible  misapprehension. 
I  said  that  the  list  of  conditions  of  attention, 
in  Ebbinghaus'  Grundzilge,  implies  that  we  may 
attend  without  feeling.  And  I  said  that  that 
implication  is  in  conflict  with  Wundt's  familiar 
definition  of  feeling  as  the  reaction  of  apper- 
ception upon  the  sensory  contents  of  conscious- 
ness. How  can  we  attend  without  feeling,  if 
feeling  is  generated  in  the  act  of  attention  ?  But 
I  have  just  now  quoted  from  Wundt  sentences 
which  affirm  that  feeling  may  be  present,  at  a 
relatively  high  intensity,  while  its  sensory  sub- 
strate is  still  'extraordinarily  obscure.'  Do  not 
these  sentences  suggest  that  feeling  may  be  gen- 
erated without  attention  ?  And  is  not  Wundt, 
therefore,  inconsistent  ? 

When  Wundt  wrote,  in  1893,  that  feeling  is 
"die  Reactionsweise  der  Apperception  auf  die 
sinnliche  Erregung,"  he  meant  that  statement 
to  be  understood  in  its  obvious  and  literal  sense. 


304  AFFECTION   AXD   ATTENTION 

'*  Der  Gefuhlston  "  —  we  are  in  1893  !  — ''  kommt 
liberhaupt  nur  zu  Stande,  insofern  wir  die 
Empfindungen  appcrcipiren,  und  er  kann  daher 
als  die  subjective  oder  psychische  Seite  jenes  cen- 
traleren  V oranges  der  Apperception  angesehen 
werden,  der  zu  der  centralen  Sinneserregung 
hinzukommt,  wenn  sich  die  Thatigkeit  des 
Bewusstseins  ihr  zuwendet."  ^^  In  1902  he  has 
kept  the  phrase,  — feeling  is  still  the  *' Reaction 
der  Apperception  auf  das  einzelne  Bewusstseins- 
erlebniss";  it  is  of  the  essence  of  feeling  *'Re- 
actionsweise  der  Apperception  auf  den  Bewusst- 
seinsinhalt  zu  sein,"^^ — but  he  has  changed  its 
meaning.  Feeling  is  no  longer  confined  to  those 
sensory  contents  that  are  the  'object'  of  atten- 
tion; on  the  contrary  it  may  accompany  any 
contents,  clear  or  obscure.  ''  [Die]  centrale 
Function  der  Apperception  ist  in  jedem  Augen- 
blick  auch  fiir  den  ganzen  iibrigen  Bewusstseins- 
inhalt  bestimmend,  indem  dessen  sammtliche 
Elemente  nach  ihrem  Verhaltniss  zu  den  apper- 
cipirten  Elementen  geordnet  werden.  So  er- 
scheinen  denn  auch  die  an  die  einzelnen  Bewusst- 
seinsinhalte  gebundenen  Geflihle  durchaus  als 
subjective  Bestimmungen,  die  jedes  einzelne  Be- 
wusstseinserlebniss  durch  seine  Einwirkung  auf 
die  Function  der  Apperception  empfangt.  In 
diesem  Sinne"  —  in  this  new  and  modified  sense 


THE  ATTENTIVE  CONSCIOUSNESS      305 

—  ''ist  jedes  Gefiihl  .  .  .  Reaction,  der  x\pper- 
ception  auf  das  einzelne  Bewusstseinserlebniss." 
I  do  not  understand  how  conscious  contents  can 
be  reacted  upon  by  apperception  without  thereby 
becoming  clear.  But,  however  that  may  be,  this 
reaction,  which  evokes  feeling  over  the  w^iole  of 
the  obscure  background  of  consciousness,-^  is 
something  entirely  different  from  the  direct  reac- 
tion of  attention  upon  its*  object.  The  tridi- 
mensional theory  of  feeling  has  compelled  Wundt 
to  change  his  exposition ;  and  he  has  changed  it 
in  such  a  way  that,  so  far  as  the  phrases  go,  he 
is  not  inconsistent.  At  the  same  time,  his  revised 
doctrine  is,  I  am  sure,  only  transitional,  and  I 
hope  that  we  may  presently  have  an  essay  in 
which  it  is  fully  worked  out. 

That  was  a  digression.  We  have  next,  pick- 
ing up  again  the  main  thread  of  the  discussion, 
to  attempt  a  rough  characterisation  of  the  atten- 
tive consciousness.  Its  central  feature,  the  two- 
level  formation,  has  already  been  described.* 
But  besides  the  ''Klarheitszunahme  einer  be- 
stimmten  Vorstellung  oder  Vorstellungsgruppe " 
and  the  "Hemmung  anderer  disponibler  Ein- 
driicke  oder  Erinnerungsbilder,"  —  besides,  that 
is,  the  appearance  of  the  two  levels,  —  Wundt 

*P.  241. 


306  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

finds  an  essential  constituent  of  every  process  of 
apperception  in  the  concomitant  Thdtigkeitsge- 
fiXhl?^  What  are  we  to  say  with  regard  to  the 
feeling  of  activity  ? 

Wundt  has  often  been  charged  with  circularity 
of  statement.  Feeling  is  the  reaction  of  apper- 
ception upon  sensation ;  yet  apperception  itself 
comes  to  consciousness  as  a  feeling.  Or  again : 
apperception  is  the* primitive  act  of  will;  acts 
of  will  are  feelings;  yet  feeling  presupposes  the 
direction  of  an  act  of  will  upon  sensation. ^^ 
I  have  been  accustomed  to  meet  this  charge  by 
the  reply  that  the  feeling  of  activity  is  the  dis- 
covery of  introspection.  Let  me  quote  a  parallel 
case.  James  has  told  us  that  *'  the  acts  of  attend- 
ing, assenting,  negating,  making  an  effort  are 
felt"  by  him  '*as  movements  of  something  in  the 
head."  '*  Whenever  my  introspective  glance 
succeeds  in  turning  round  quickly  enough  to 
catch  one  of  these  manifestations  of  spontaneity 
in  the  act,  all  it  can  ever  feel  distinctly  is  some 
bodily  process,  for  the  most  part  taking  place 
within  the  head."  ^^  Kohn  objects  to  this  de- 
scription that  "if  the  feelings  were  present  w^hile 
the  attention  is  directed  upon  some  other  object, 
there  would  be  no  need  at  all  of  the  'turning 
round'  or  the  'introspective  glance.'  We  should 
be  conscious  of  them  without  this."  ^^     To  which 


THE  FEELING   OF  ACTIVITY  307 

the  obvious  rejoinder  is  that  we  are  conscious  of 
them  *  without  this ' ;  otherwise  there  would  be 
no  cue  for  introspection.  We  do  not  attempt  to 
introspect  the  non-existent.  But,  when  we  are 
giving  a  psychological  account  of  any  contents, 
we  examine  it  in  the  state  of  attention.* 

Apply  that,  now,  to  Wundt.  The  typical  form 
of  attention,  if  one  induces  it  for  purposes  of 
introspection,  is  voluntary  attention.  Conscious- 
ness in  the  state  of  voluntary  attention  is  com- 
posed, in  part,  of  *muskulare  Spannungsemp- 
fmdungen.'  When,  then,  one  seeks  to  introspect 
the  attentive  consciousness,  one  comes  naturally 
upon  these  sensations  of  strain ;  they  are  made 
focal ;  and,  in  the  process  of  their  focalisation,  a 
'feeling  of  activity'  must,  on  Wundl's  view,  be 
struck  out.  Hence  it  is  impossible  to  introspect 
the  state  of  voluntary  attention  without  discover- 
ing a  ThdtigkeitsgefilhL 

I  think  that  this  explanation  heads  off  the 
charge  of  circularity ;  and  it  seemed  worth  while 
to  lay  it  before  you  because,  as  I  said,  the  charge 
has  often  been  made.  It  must,  however,  be 
pointed  out  that  the  independent  status  of  the 
feelings  in  Wundt's  recent  writings  changes  the 
whole  situation.     The  Thdtigkeitsgefuhl  has  now 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  James  and  Kohn  use  'feel'  and 
'feeling'  where  we  should  employ  'perceive'  and  'perception.' 


308  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

to  stand  on  its  own  feet,  without  aid  from  intro- 
spection ;  we  either  experience  it  —  as  feeling  — 
in  every  instance  of  attention,  or  we  do  not.  My 
own  opinion  is  that  we  do  not.^^  In  frequent 
cases  of  wliat  I  have  called  reflex  or  instinctive  or 
mechanised  attention  I  find  no  trace  of  feeling  at 
all.  The  depressing  Gefilhl  dcs  Erleidens  and 
the  subsequent  exciting  Gcfuhl  der  Thdtigkeit 
are  both,  in  my  experience,  conspicuous  by  their 
absence.  Wundt's  schema  for  voluntary  atten- 
tion is  expectation,  followed  by  a  very  brief  feel- 
ing of  satisfaction  or  fulfilment,  followed  again 
by  the  feeling  of  activity .^^  But  everything  de- 
pends, surely,  upon  what  you  mean  by  voluntary 
attention.  Wundt  is  thinking  of  reaction  ex- 
periments ;  ^^  and  there  are,  I  admit,  —  though 
with  a  reservation  to  be  made  in  a  moment,  — 
certain  forms  of  compound  reaction  in  which 
that  sequence  of  feelings  is  realised.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  have  noted  many  instances  of  what 
would  pass,  in  ordinary  psychological  usage,  for 
voluntary  attention,  in  which  one  or  two  or  all 
three  of  the  feelings  w^ere  lacking. 

My  reservation  is  not  serious;  it  concerns 
merely  the  naming  of  the  processes  in  question. 
Expectation  and  effort  are  not,  in  my  view, 
necessarily  affective,  though  both  of  them  may, 
under  certain  circumstances,  be  accompanied  by 


THE  MOTOR  THEORY  OF  ATTENTION    309 

pleasantness-unpleasantness.  It  is  more  im- 
portant, however,  to  examine  the  part  that  effort 
actually  plays  in  the  attentive  consciousness. 
Such  an  examination  brings  us  face  to  face  with 
two  large  questions  :  the  '  motor '  interpretation 
of  attention,  and  the  distinction  of  attentive  states 
as  active  and  passive,  voluntary  and  involuntary. 
On  these  two  questions  I  can  only  repeat  what 
I  have  said  elsewhere.  I  have  always  regarded, 
and  I  probably  shall  always  regard,  the  motor 
interpretation  of  attention  as  one-sided.  We  have 
already  seen,  on  the  plane  of  descriptive  psy- 
chology, that  kinsesthetic  sensations  stand  in  an 
equivocal  relation  to  'degree'  of  attention.* 
And  it  may  be  seriously  doubted  whether  they 
are  a  necessary  and  integral  part  of  the  attentive 
consciousness.  Kinsesthesis  is,  I  suppose,  al- 
ways present  in  the  obscure  background  of 
consciousness;  but  I  question  if,  in  states  of 
what  I  term  *  secondary  passive  attention,'  these 
kinsesthetic  processes  are  necessarily  intensified, 
or  new  kinsesthetic  sensations  introduced.  Wundt 
remarks  that  the  'muskularen  Spannungsemp- 
findungen,'  which  are  a  frequent  partial  contents 
of  apperception,  may  '*fehlen  oder  von  sehr 
geringer  Starke  sein."  ^^  What  we  need,  in  this 
matter,  is  less  theory  and  more  observations  of 

*  P.  279. 


310  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

fact.  On  the  side  of  explanation,  I  suggest  that 
a  like  one-sidedness  is  shown  in  the  constant  in- 
sistence on  the  reflex  arc  as  the  functional  unit 
of  the  nervous  system.  It  seems  to  be  forgotten 
that,  from  another  point  of  view,  the  oflSce  of  the 
cortex  may  properly  be  described  as  the  disjunc- 
tion of  the  reflex  arc,  the  interposition  of  resist- 
ance between  sensory  stimulus  and  motor  re- 
sponse. The  result  of  this  disjunction  is  that 
the  attitude  of  the  organism  may  be  typically  re- 
ceptive, typically  elaborative,  or  typically  execu- 
tive. In  sensible  discrimination,  the  attitude  is 
mainly  receptive ;  there  are  no  known  muscular 
adjustments  that  can  keep  pace  with  the  just 
noticeable  differences  of  colour  and  tone.  In 
concentrated  thought  the  attitude  is  mainly  elab- 
orative ;  and  where  is  the  evidence  of  motor 
outflow  here  ?  I  am  not  disputing  the  neurone 
theory;  but  I  argue  that  the  longer  a  principal 
path  is  made,  the  more  synapses  there  are  in  its 
course,  and  the  more  numerous  the  bypaths  be- 
come, the  more  difficult  w  ill  it  be  for  an  excitatory 
process  to  find  its  way  out  in  the  straightfor- 
ward sensorimotor  fashion.  McDougall  whites, 
to  the  same  effect,  that  the  "physiological 
basis  of  the  ' Lebhaftigkeit '  of  the  presentation" 
is  to  be  found  in  ''the  complexity  of  the  upper 
levels"  of  the  nervous  system ;^^    and  Ebbing- 


PASSIVE  AND  ACTIVE  ATTENTION     311 

haus,  too,  lays  great  stress  upon  the  'Querver- 
bindungen'  in  his  theory  of  attention.^^ 

Whether,  then,  we  consider  it  psychologically 
or  physiologically,  the  motor  interpretation  of 
attention  appears  to  be  one-sided.  How  does 
it  gain  acceptance  ?  Pillsbury  gives  a  reason ; 
he  suggests  that  all  the  motor  theories  derive,  in 
the  last  resort,  from  "la  tendance  populaire  a 
regarder  I'activite  accompagnant  le  processus  de 
I'attention  comme  sa  cause."  ^^  If,  however, 
this  is  correct  reasoning,  the  theories  are  doubly 
suspect:  they  stand  committed,  from  the  out- 
set, to  a  partial  view  of  the  facts.  We  may 
cheerfully  grant  that,  for  this  very  reason,  they 
have  done  psychological  service;  where  the 
problem  is  complex,  exaggeration  in  one  quarter 
may  be  necessary  to  prevent  neglect  in  another. 
But  this  does  not  mean  that  exaggeration  is  it- 
self laudable ;  and  I  can  see  nothing  but  a 
palpable  exaggeration  in  the  definition  of  atten- 
tion as  a  motor  reaction.  ^^ 

I  must  hurry  on  to  our  second  question,  — 
the  question  of  the  distinction  between  passive 
and  active,  involuntary  and  voluntary  attention. 
"La  distinction  entre  I'attention  passive  et  I'at- 
tention active  est  basee,"  Pillsbury  says,  "sur 
I'absence  ou  la  presence  de  sensations  d'effort. 
.  .  .     Mais  comme  les  sensations  d'effort  sont 


312  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

des  accompagnements  fortuits,  ne  correspondant 
ni  aux  conditions,  ni  au  degre  de  Tattention,  il 
semble  impossible  de  retenir  une  partie  de  cette 
classification  sans  compliquer  considerablement 
la  terminologie,  et  cela  sans  grand  profit."  ^^ 
On  the  historical  issue,  Pillsbury  is  undoubtedly 
right ;  and  I  have  already  expressed  my  agree- 
ment with  the  view  which  he  takes  of  sensations 
of  strain.  But  I  doubt  very  much  whether  we 
can  afford  to  discard  altogether  the  use  of  the 
terms  active-passive  or  voluntary-involuntary. 
Better  a  poor  terminology  than  the  slurring  of 
an  observed  difference  !  And,  at  any  rate,  it  is 
interesting  to  note  that  neither  Wundt  nor  Eb- 
binghaus  relies  for  the  distinction  —  which  both 
draw,  though  in  characteristically  different  ways 
—  upon  strain  sensations.  According  to  Ebbing- 
haus,  '  sensations  of  activity '  are  marks  of  atten- 
tion in  general.  ^^  Wundt,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  so  largely  occupied  with  the  feelings  that  sen- 
sations of  strain  play  a  very  minor  part  in  his 
account. 

How,  then,  are  the  two  forms  of  attention  dis- 
tinguished ?  For  Wundt  there  is,  first  of  all,  the 
difference  of  feeling.  Further:  **die  active  Ap- 
perception ist  im  allgemeinen  eine  durch  die 
Gesammtlage  des  Bewusstseins  vorbereitete,  die 
passive   ist    in    der   Regel   eine   unvorbereitete.'* 


PASSIVE  AND  ACTIVE  ATTENTION     313 

And  this  means,  again,  that  passive  attention  is 
"im  allgemeinen  eine  Willenshandlung  unter  der 
Wirkung  eines  Motivs,  oder  .  .  .  eine  Trieh- 
handlungy  Active  attention,  on  the  contrary, 
is  equivocally  conditioned ;  it  is  a  WillkiXrhand- 
lung,  subject  to  the  interplay  of  primary  with 
secondary  motives,  or  a  W ahlhandlung ,  the  re- 
sultant of  a  conflict  of  primary  motives.  The 
two  criteria  (prepared,  unprepared;  univocally 
conditioned,  equivocally  conditioned)  are  coordi- 
nate, —  or  rather  represent  two  aspects,  the 
descriptive  and  the  causal,  of  one  and  the  same 
general  difference.^^ 

I  think  that  these  distinctions  hold ;  and  I 
think  that,  if  we  have  recourse  to  our  general 
law  of  the  rise  and  fall,  the  expansion  and  reduc- 
tion of  conscious  formations,^^  and  classify  atten- 
tions accordingly  as  primary  passive,  active,  and 
secondary  passive,  we  are  able  to  do  rough  and 
ready  justice  to  the  facts.  This  classification  is, 
in  the  first  instance,  genetic.  We  may  assume 
that  attention,  in  its  beginnings,  was  a  definitely 
determined  reaction  —  sensory  and  motor  both — ■ 
upon  a  single  stimulus.  As  sense-organs  multi- 
plied, two  or  more  disparate  stimuli  might,  each 
one  in  its  own  right,  claim  the  organism's  atten- 
tion; here,  in  sense-rivalry  and  the  conflict  of 
motor  attitudes,  we  should  have  the  birth  of  ac- 


314  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

tive  attention.  When,  later  on,  image  super- 
vened upon  sensation,  conflict  and  rivalry  were 
largely  transferred  to  the  field  of  ideas,  and  we 
find  in  consequence  that  separation  of  the  recep- 
tive, elaborative,  and  executive  attitudes  of  which 
I  spoke  just  now.  So  far,  there  has  been  a  pro- 
gressive increase  in  the  complexity  of  the  atten- 
tive consciousness.  At  this  point  reduction  sets 
in;  choice  and  deliberation  give  way  to  secon- 
dary impulses,  and  active  gives  way  to  secondary 
passive  attention.  The  ground  is  thus  cleared 
for  further  growth ;  new  formations  appear  in  the 
state  of  active  attention,  to  be  simplified  in  their 
turn, — and  the  cycle  recurs,  with  constant  al- 
ternation of  habit  and  acquisition,  so  long  as  the 
organism  retains  its  flexibility.  This  account 
shows,  in  barest  outline,  my  own  systematic  use 
of  the  distinction ;  and  you  see  that  the  whole 
schema  is  implicit  in  Wundt's  doctrine,  and  fol- 
lows naturally  from  it.^^ 

Genetic  psychology  lends  itself  to  a  summary 
exposition  of  this  kind;  to  its  wider  view  the 
principle  stands  out,  clear  of  confusing  details. 
But  Wundt  himself  is  writing  descriptive  psy- 
chology; and  descriptive  psychology  is  always 
in  the  grip  of  details.  This  is  a  fact  that  we 
must  bear  in  mind  when  we  seek  to  appraise  the 
distinction  of  voluntary  and  involuntary  atten- 


PASSIVE  AND  ACTIVE  ATTENTION     315 

tion  in  Ebbinghaus'  system.  '*Die  willkiirliche 
Aufmerksamkeit,"  he  says,  *'ist  die  voraussehau- 
end  orewordene  unwillkiirliche.  .  .  .  Sieverhal- 
ten  sicli  also  zueinander  wie  Trieb  und  Wille."^® 
I  remarked,  a  little  while  ago,  that  the  difference 
between  Wundt  and  Ebbinghaus,  in  regard  to 
the  will,  is  at  bottom  no  more  than  a  difference 
of  terminology.  Very  much  the  same  thing 
may  be  said  here,  except  that  Ebbinghaus  con- 
fines himself  wholly  to  description,  and  rejects 
the  coordinate  causal  explanation,  while  at  the 
same  time  his  descriptive  distinction  is  cleaner 
cut,  more  dogmatic,  than  that  of  Wundt.  I 
should  give  the  preference,  on  both  counts,  to 
Wundt's  exposition.^^  It  must  be  remembered 
that  we  are  dealing  with  formations  of  bewilder- 
ing complexity,  with  total  consciousnesses;  and 
that  we  have  little  more  to  guide  us  than  psycho- 
logical tradition  and  the  casual  observations 
made  in  the  course  of  experimental  work  or  in 
everyday  life.  Under  these  conditions,  we  ought 
to  follow  up  every  clue  that  offers,  and  we 
ought  also  to  leave  room  in  the  system  for  doubt- 
ful cases,  intermediate  forms,  transitional  modes. 
No  doubt,  the  hostile  critic  will  at  once  raise  the 
cry  of  inconsistency.  Comfort  yourselves  with 
the  reflection  that  the  hostile  critic  is  generally 
superficial !     It  is  the  sympathetic  critic  who  dis- 


316  AFFECTION  AND  ATTENTION 

covers  your  real  weaknesses,  and  helps  you  by 
showing  where  they  lie;  and  the  sympathetic 
critic  is  less  likely  to  charge  inconsistency  than 
to  probe  for  its  underlying  reasons. 

I  am  now  at  an  end.  I  finished  writing  the 
last  paragraph  with  a  feeling  compounded,  in 
Wundtian  terms,  of  pleasantness,  relaxation, 
and  tranquillisation.  We  set  out  from  uncer- 
tainty and  chaos ;  and  we  have  at  least  achieved 
a  fairly  definite  point  of  view,  and  have  laid  out 
a  programme  of  experimental  work  for  the  future. 
Unfortunately,  affective  processes  move  between 
opposites :  and  that  first  feeling  —  which  in  my 
own  poverty-stricken  terminology  would  be 
merely  a  feeling  of  relief  —  soon  gave  way  to  a 
feeling  of  unpleasantness,  tension,  and  depres- 
sion. We  know  so  very  little  of  the  subject  of 
these  Lectures,  and  the  work  that  we  have  found 
to  do  will  take  so  long  in  the  doing !  But  feel- 
ings, again,  are  subject  to  Abstwnpfung,  show  the 
phenomena  of  adaptation  ;  and  the  feeling  of  de- 
pression passed  as  the  feeling  of  relief  had  passed 
before  it.  The  professional  attitude  came  to  its 
rights.  And  that  attitude,  in  the  case  of  the 
experimental  psychologist,  is  —  how  shall  I 
describe  it  ?  —  an  attitude  of  patient  confi- 
dence.    We  must  be  patient,  because  of  all  the 


CONCLUSION  317 

objects  of  human  inquiry  mind  is  the  most 
baffling  and  the  most  complex;  we  must  expect 
that  the  systems  of  to-day  may  have  only  an  his- 
torical interest  for  the  next  generation.  But 
we  may  have  absolute  confidence  in  our  method, 
because  the  method  has  proved  itself  in  the  past ; 
it  has  done  far  more  for  psychology  than  is 
generally  acknowledged,  far  more  even  than  is 
recognised  in  the  ordinary  text-book  of  psychol- 
ogy: for  the  law  of  attentional  inertia  holds  in 
science  as  it  holds  in  ordinary  life.  There  is 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  patient  applica- 
tion of  the  experimental  method  will  presently 
solve  the  problems  of  feeling  and  attention. 


/ 


NOTES 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  I 

^  It  is,  of  course,  an  open  question  whether  the  sensation 
and  the  image  may  be  bracketed  under  a  single  heading 
(Kulpe)  or  must  be  treated  as  distinct  elements  (Ebbing- 
haus).  I  am  not  here  prejudging  this  question.  Which- 
ever view  one  holds,  the  combined  doctrine  of  sensation 
and  image  is  set  off,  in  systematic  regard,  from  the  doctrines 
of  affection  and  attention. 

^  W.  Wundt,  Grundziige  der  physiologischen  Psychologies 
i.,  1902,  xiv. ;  ii.,  1902,  v.  Cf.  also  i.,  353.  —  H.  Ebbing- 
haus,  Grundziige  der  Psychologies  i.,  1905,  183  f.,  432. 

The  difference  might,  no  doubt,  be  moderated.  Thus 
Wundt  wrote  as  early  as  1896:  "Kommt  daher  auch  die 
Grosseneigenschaft  als  solche,  und  zwar  im  allgemeinen  in 
verschiedenen  Formen,  namlich  als  Intensitat,  als  Qualitat, 
als  extensiver  (raumlicher  oder  zeitlicher)  Werth,  und 
eventuell,  namlich  wenn  die  verschiedenen  Bewusst- 
seinszustande  berlicksichtigt  werden,  als  Klarheitsgrad, 
jedem  psychischen  Element  und  jedem  psychischen  Ge- 
bilde  an  und  fur  sich  schon  zu,  u.s.w."  {Grundriss  der 
Psychologic,  1896,  296  f . ;  1905,  312  [Engl.,  1897,  252; 
1907,  288  f.]).  And  Ebbinghaus  declares  that  the  general 
attributes  appear  "  in  der  Regel  je  mit  mehreren  einer  be- 
stimmten  Klasse  von  [den  spezifischen  Empfindungen]  auf 
einmal" ;  difference  and  multiplicity,  for  instance,  presup- 
pose at  least  two  sensations  (op.  cit.y  433  f.).  At  the  same 
time,  the  two  systems  cannot  be  brought  into  accord. 

^  Vdlkerpsychologie,  cine  Untcrsuchung  der  Entwick- 
Y  321 


322  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I 

lungsgesetze  von  Sprache,  Mythus  und  Sitte.  I.  Die 
Sprache,  i.,  1900,  37  ff.     Also  1904,  43  ff. 

It  may  be  urged  that,  for  Wundt's  constructive  purposes, 
it  matters  little  whether  the  dimensions  of  strain-relaxation 
and  excitement-depression  represent  "einfache  GefUhls- 
formen"  or  simple  syntheses  of  affective  process  with  or- 
ganic sensation.  The  reply  is  twofold.  If  such  a  change 
of  standpoint  is  immaterial,  then  the  system  cannot  be  very 
closely  articulated;  the  superstructure  (to  change  the  fig- 
ure) must  sit  rather  loosely  upon  its  foundations.  And 
again,  if  the  change  of  standpoint  is  psychologically  neces- 
sary, then  it  also  becomes  necessary  to  inquire  whether  there 
are  not  other,  fundamental  and  typical  syntheses,  over  and 
above  strain-relaxation  and  excitement-depression,  which 
have  an  equal  claim  to  recognition. 

^  W.  B.  Pillsbury,  V attention,  1906,  v.  "  Dans  Tetat  cha- 
otique  ou  se  trouvent  les  theories  contemporaines  de 
Tattention,"  etc.     Attention^  1908,  ix. 

^  E.  Mach,  Beitrdge  zur  Analyse  der  Empfindungen,  1886, 
121  f.,  134;  Die  Analyse  der  Empfindungen  und  das 
Verhdltniss  des  Physischen  zum  Psychischen,  1900,  180  f., 
193. 

®  See,  e.g.,  the  discussion  of  the  Method  of  Limits  in  my 
Experimental  Psychology,  II.,  ii.,  1905,  99  ff. 

On  the  general  topic  of  elements  and  attributes  it  may 
suffice  here  to  refer  the  reader  to  A.  Meinong,  Ueber  Be- 
griff  und  Eigenschaften  der  Empfindung,  Vjs.  f.  wiss. 
Philos.,  xii.,  1888,  324  ff.,  477  ff. ;  xiii.,  1889,  1  ff . ;  Be- 
merkungen  iiber  den  Farbenkorper  und  das  Mischungsge- 
setz,  Zeits.  f.  Psychol,  u.  Physiol,  d.  Sinnesorgane,  xxxiii., 
1903,  1  ff.,  esp.  §  6 ;  E.  B.  Talbot,  The  Doctrine  of  Con- 
scious Elements,   Philosophical  Review,   iv.,    1895,    154; 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I  323 

I.  M.  Bentley,  The  Simplicity  of  Colour  Tones,  American 
Journal  of  Psychology,  xiv.,  1903,  92;  M.  Meyer,  On  the 
Attributes  of  the  Sensations,  Psychological  Review,  xi., 
1904,  83.  Of  the  systematic  treatises  I  mention  only  C. 
Stumpf,  Tonpsychologie,  i.,  1883,  108.  The  departure 
from  psychological  tradition  in  H.  Munsterberg's  Grund- 
zilgeder  Psychologic,  l,  1900,  is  noteworthy;  but  its  discus- 
sion would  take  us  too  far  afield.  See  M.  F.  Washburn, 
Some  Examples  of  the  Use  of  Psychological  Analysis  in 
System-Making,  Philos.  Review,  xi.,  1902,  445  ff.  —  Fur- 
ther references  are  given  in  later  Notes. 

^  G.  E.  MUller,  Zur  Psychophysik  der  Gesichtsempfin- 
dungen,  Zeits.  f.  Psychol,  u.  Physiol,  d.  Sinnesorgane,  x., 
1896,  2  f.,  25  ff. 

^  G.  T.  Fechner,  Elemente  der  Psychophysik,  i.  (1860) 
1889,  15. 

^  W.  James,  The  Principles  of  Psijchology,  ii.,  1890,  136. 

*^  See,  e.g.,  the  discussion  in  Wundt,  Physiologische 
Psychologic,  i.,  1902,  14  f.  (Principles,  i.,  1904,  12  ff.), 
339  ff.,  350  ff.  It  is  needless  to  multiply  references,  as 
the  usage  of  the  experimentalists  is  now  strict  and  con- 
sistent. James  himself  often  employs  the  term  'sensa- 
tion' very  loosely  (cf.  the  discussion  in  Principles,  ii.,  1), 
though  he  offers  two  definitions.  On  the  one  hand, 
(1)  sensation  is  a  limiting  form  of  cognition,  the  form  in 
which  "the  object  cognised"  comes  nearest  "to  being  a 
simple  quality  like  'hot,'  'cold,'  'red,'  'noise,'  'pain,' 
apprehended  irrelatively  to  other  things"  (loc.  cit.).  Sen- 
sation is  realised  only  in  the  earliest  days  of  life;  it 
is  impossible,  or  all  but  impossible,  to  adults  whose  cog- 
nitive function  has  passed  from  acquaintance-with  to 
knowledge-about  {ibid.,  3,  7  f . ;  cf.  i.,  221  ff.,  478  f. ;   Text- 


324  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I 

book,  1892,  12  ff.).  On  the  other  hand,  (2)  sensation  is 
"the  object  cognised"  in  this  Hmiting  form  of  cognition, 
"namely,  simple  qualities  or  attributes  like  hard,  hot, 
pain  "  themselves.  In  this  sense,  too,  a  pure  sensation 
is  known  to  the  adult  only  by  way  of  abstraction  (Prin- 
ciples, ii.,  3;  cf.  i.,  195,  224,  478  f. ;  Text-book,  40  ff.,  etc.). 
It  is  clear,  I  think,  that  on  either  of  these  definitions  the 
statement  of  the  text  is  valid. 

"  With  this  whole  discussion,  cf.  C.  Stumpf,  Tonpsij- 
chologie,  i.,  1883,  207  ff. ;  ii.,  1890,  56  ff.,  535  ff.  Ebbing- 
haus  regards  volume  merely  as  a  'characterisation'  of 
pitch,  and  thus  endows  tonal  sensations  with  but  a  single 
qualitative  attribute:    Grundzuge,  i.,  1905,  294  f.,  445. 

^^  The  preceding  paragraphs  are  the  outcome  of  personal 
observations,  taken  especially  during  the  year  1906-1907. 
The  views  which  they  embody  are  stated  in  more  detail 
in  the  forthcoming  edition  of  my  Outline  of  Psychology. 
On  the  question  of  itch  and  its  relation  to  pain  I  may  also 
refer  to  L.  Torok,  Ueber  das  Wesen  der  Juckempfindung, 
Zeits.f.  Psychol,  xlvi.,  1907,  23  ff. 

^^  E.  Hering,  Zur  Lchre  vom  Lichtsinne,  1878,  55  f. ; 
Grundzilge  der  Lehre  vom  Lichtsinn,  1907,  111.  F.  Hille- 
brand,  Ueber  die  specifische  Helligkeit  der  Farben, 
Sitzungsber.  d.  kais.  Akad.  d.  Wiss.  in  Wien,  mathem.- 
naturw.  Classe,  xcviii.,  3,  1889,  89.  O.  Klilpe,  Outlines 
of  Psychology,  1895,  30,  114,  119;  Ueber  die  Objectivirung 
und  Subjectivirung  von  Sinneseindrlicken,  Philos.  Studien, 
xix.,  1902,  509.  E.  B.  Titchener,  An  Outline  of  Psy- 
chology, 1896,  68,  71,  77.  G.  E.  Muller,  Zur  Psychophysik 
der  Gesichtsempfindungen,  Zeits.  f  Psychol,  u.  Physiol. 
d.  Sinnesorgane,  x.,  1896,30  ff.,  411  f . ;  xiv.,  1897,40 
ff.,  60  ff. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I  325 

The  psychophysical  argument  which  Muller  urges 
against  Hillebrand  (Zeits.,  x.,  33)  is,  I  suppose,  impHed  in 
one  form  or  another  by  the  taper  of  the  colour  pyramid. 
I  do  not  see,  however,  how  it  can  be  translated  into  psy- 
chological terms,  as  an  introspective  argument  for  the 
intensity  of  visual  sensation.  Wundt  constructs  the  col- 
our pyramid  from  hue,  chroma,  and  intensity  {Physiol. 
Psychol.,  ii.,  1902,  159  ff.) ;  but  this  procedure  necessarily 
leads  to  confusion. 

"  Duration  has  been  discussed  by  M.  W.  Calkins, 
Attributes  of  Sensation,  Psychological  Review,  vi.,  1899, 
506  ff.  (cf.  xi.,  1904,  221  f.),  and  M.  F.  Washburn,  Notes 
on  Duration  as  an  Attribute  of  Sensations,  ibid.,  x.,  1903, 
416  ff. 

A  few  additional  words  may,  perhaps,  prevent  mis- 
understanding of  the  text.  When  I  say  that  extension 
and  duration  are  the  attributes  to  which  we  attend  when 
we  are  asked  certain  questions,  I  do  not  mean  that  exten- 
sion, as  such,  is  or  has  a  definite  form  or  a  definite  magni- 
tude or  a  definite  local  arrangement  of  parts,  or  that 
duration,  as  such,  is  or  has  a  definite  length  or  a  definite 
serial  arrangement  of  parts.  I  mean  only  that  there  are 
questions  which  direct  us  to  the  fundamental  spreading- 
out  character  of  the  sensation,  and  that  there  are  other 
questions  which  direct  us  to  its  fundamental  going-on 
character;  and  that  we  are  able  to  attend,  by  abstraction, 
to  these  attributes  and  to  neglect  the  rest.  I  have  never 
believed,  in  particular,  that  locality  and  order,  place  in 
space  and  position  in  time,  are  attributes  of  sensation. 

A  discussion  with  which  I  am  in  essential  agreement  will 
be  found  in  H.  Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige  der  Psychologies 
i.,  1905,  445  ff.,  480  ff. 


326  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I 

^^  Kiilpe  says,  in  Outlines,  30,  that "  extension  belongs  only 
to  the  visual  and  cutaneous  sensations  (Hautsinn)  " ;  and, 
in  Outlines,  335,  that  it  belongs  to  "  the  visual  and  '  tactual,* 
—  the  latter  term  embracing  both  cutaneous  sensations 
proper  and  the  articular  sensations  set  up  in  the  motile 
parts  of  the  body  (sowohl  die  Hautempfindungen  als  auch 
die  Gelenkempfindungen)."  Ebbinghaus  (Grundzuge,  i., 
445  f.)  predicates  extension  only  of  visual  and  cutaneous 
sensations. 

"  Cf .  my  Postulates  of  a  Structural  Psychology,  Philo- 
soph.  Review,  vii.,  1898,  461  f . ;  L  M.  Bentley,  The 
Psychological  Meaning  of  Clearness,  Mind,  N.  S.,  xiii., 
1904,  242  ff. 

^'  C.  Stumpf,  Tonpsijchologie,  i.,  1883,  202  f . ;  ii.,  1890, 
524  ff.  According  to  the  footnote,  ^6^VZ.,  ii.,  525,  the  attri- 
bute of  tone-tint  was  recognised  independently  in  1885  by 
Stumpf  and  by  G.  Engel ;   I  have  not  seen  Engel's  paper. 

J.  Passy  distinguishes  between  the  'pouvoir  odorant' 
and  the  intensity  of  odours.  The  former  is  inversely  pro- 
portional to  the  RL.  "Tout  le  monde  sent,"  he  says, 
"que  le  camphre,  le  citron,  la  benzine  sont  des  odeurs 
fortes,  la  vanille,  I'iris  des  odeurs  faibles,"  although  the 
'pouvoir  odorant'  of  vanilla  is  at  least  a  thousand  times 
as  great  as  that  of  camphor :  Comptes  rendus  de  la  Societe 
de  Biologie,  [19  Mars]  1892,  240.  It  is  clear  that  the 
*  pouvoir  odorant'  belongs  to  psychophysics,  not  to  psy- 
chology; but  it  is  clear  also  that  we  must  distinguish, 
psychologically,  between  the  intensity  and  the  penetrat- 
ingness  of  an  olfactory  sensation. 

G.  E.  Mliller  insists  on  Eindringlichkeit,  as  distinct  from 
Intensitdt,  in  his  Psychophysik  der  Gesichtsempfindungen, 
Zeits.  /.  Psychol,  x.,  1896,  26  ff.     Cf.  also  Die  Gesichts- 


I 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I  327 

punkte  und  die  Tatsachen  der  psychophysischen  Methodiky 

1904,  123;  J.  Frobes,  Zeits.  f.  Psychol,  xxxvi.,  1904, 
368  ff. ;   and  see  Lecture  V.,  note  33. 

On  the  Eindringlichkeit  of  certain  pains,  see  W.  James, 
Psychol.  Review,  i.,  1894,  523  note;  M.  von  Frey,  Die 
Gefiihle  und  ihr  Verhdltnis  zu  den  Empjindungen,  1894,  15. 

^*  Ebbinghaus,  Grundzilge,  i.,  1905,  195 ;  H.  Aubert, 
Grundzilge  der  physiologischen  Optik,  1876,  532.  Ebbing- 
haus is  speaking  in  general  terms ;  it  is  diflScult  to  see  the 
basis  of  Aubert's  statement.  Cf.  also  Kiilpe,  Outlines, 
106  f.,  122,  127;  Helmholtz,  Physiol.  Optik,  1896,  325. 
I  owe  to  Professor  Bentley  the  suggestion  that  tonal 
volume  may  vary  without  variation  of  pitch;  the  point  is 
well  worth  investigation.  Preliminary  experiments  of  my 
own  have,  so  far,  yielded  a  positive  result. 

^'R.  H.  Lotze,  Metaphysik,  1879,  §  258;  1884,  511  ff. ; 
Outlines  of  Psych.,  (1881)  1886,  17;  cf.  Medicinische 
Psychologie,  1852,  208,  and  my  Exper.  Psychol.,  II.,  ii., 

1905,  xlviii.  if.  M.  W.  Calkins  recognises  *  sensational 
elements'  of  brightness  or  visual  intensity,  of  loudness, 
etc.:  An  Introduction  to  Psychology,  1901,  42,  53,  59,  61, 
67,  75,  77.  Ebbinghaus  writes  {Grundzilge,  i.,  444) : 
"  Gesehene  und  getastete  Ausdehnung  sind  ohne  weiteres 
miteinander  vergleichbar,  ebenso  die  Dauer  eines  Tones 
mit  der  eines  Schmerzes.  Dagegen  hell,  laut  und  heiss, 
.  .  .  oder  .  .  .  violett,  sauer,  hart,  haben  schlechterdings 
gar  nichts  miteinander  gemeinsam.'* 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE   II 

^  Brentano  is  vouched  for  by  Stumpf,  Zeits.  f.  Psychol.^ 
xliv.,  1906,  4.    , 

^  The  doctrine  of  continuity  is  pithily  expressed  by  J. 
Rehmke  in  the  sentence:  "es  lasst  sich  doch  garnicht 
leugnen,  dass  der  sogenannte  '  Ton  der  Sinnesempfindung ' 
im  'physischen  Schmerze'  oder  in  der  'Wollust'  und  das 
durch  einen  Todesfall  oder  eine  Siegesnachricht  bedingte 
*  Geflihl '  wesentlich  gleiche  Bewusstseinsbestimmtheiten 
sind."  Lehrhuch  der  allgemeinen  Psychologie,  1894,  317. 
For  my  own  view,  I  can  refer  only  to  chap.  ix.  of  my 
Outline  of  Psychology,  which  unfortunately  is  both  sche- 
matic and,  to  some  extent,  out  of  date.  Stumpf's  view  is 
given  in  his  paper,  Ueber  den  Begriff  der  Gemiithsbewe- 
gung,  Zeits.  /.  Psychol.,  xxi.,  1899,  47  ff.,  which  has  full 
references  to  the  literature.  I  add  only  G.  F.  Stout,  A 
Manual  of  Psychology,  1899,  63.  The  phrase  quoted  from 
Stumpf  will  be  found  in  Zeits.,  xliv.,  7.  —  A  pathological 
case,  in  which  the  same  conditions  were  apparently  re- 
sponsible for  the  loss  both  of  feeling  and  of  emotion,  is 
reported  by  G.  R.  d'Allonnes,  Rev.  Philos.,  Dec,  1905, 
592  ff. ;  I  confess,  however,  that  I  attach  no  great  weight 
to  observations  of  this  sort.  Cf.  P.  Sollier,  Le  mecanisme 
des  emotions,  1905,  126  ff. 

^  Tonpsychologie,  i.,  vi. ;   ii.,  vii. ;  Zeits.,  xliv.,  1  ff. 

In  the  article  of  1899  (Zeits.,  xxi.,  63)  Stumpf  writes: 
"Macht  man  bei  diesen  Organempfindungen  noch  einen 
Unterschied  z^qschen  der  Empfindung  selbst  und  ihrem 

328 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  II  329 

*Gefuhlston,'  z.  B.  der  Hungerempfindung  und  der 
Unannehmlichkeit  dieser  Empfindung,  so  versteht  es  sich 
wohl  von  selbst  und  ist  von  James  zuletzt  auch  noch 
besonders  hervorgehoben,  dass  fiir  die  Natur  des  Affects 
der  GefUhlston  das  Ausschlaggebende  ist."  The  *  zuletzt' 
refers  to  James'  discussion  of  the  Physical  Basis  of  Emo- 
tion, Psychol.  Review^  i.,  1894,  516  ff.  I  am  altogether 
unable  to  read  Stumpf's  interpretation  into  this  paper. 
James  says,  when  discussing  the  '  tone  of  feeling,'  *  pleasant- 
ness or  unpleasantness  of  the  sensible  quality,'  that  "in 
addition  to  this  pleasantness  or  painfulness  of  the  con- 
tent, we  may  also  feel  a  general  seizure  of  excitement,  .  .  . 
which  is  what  I  have  all  along  meant  by  an  emotion.  Now 
whenever  I  myself  have  sought  to  discover  the  mind-stuff 
of  which  such  seizures  consist,  it  has  always  seemed  to  me 
to  be  additional  sensations  .  .  .  localized  in  divers  por- 
tions of  my  organism"  (523).  That  is,  the  GefUhlston  \s 
precisely  not  the  important  or  decisive  feature  of  the  emo- 
tion. Again  (524) :  "  I  am  even  willing  to  admit  that  the 
primary  GefUhlston  may  vary  enormously  in  distinctness 
in  different  men.  But  speaking  for  myself,  I  am  compelled 
to  say  that  the  only  feelings  which  I  cannot  more  or  less 
well  localize  in  my  body  are  very  mild  and,  so  to  speak, 
platonic  affairs.  I  allow  them  hypothetically  to  exist, 
however,  .  .  .  where  no  obvious  organic  excitement  is 
aroused."  This  is  very  different  from  making  them  das 
Ausschlaggebende  where  organic  excitement,  the  'emo- 
tional seizure,'  is  the  very  thing  to  be  explained. 

^  With  the  foregoing  paragraphs  (criterion  of  subjec- 
tivity) cf .  M.  F.  Washburn,  Some  Examples  of  the  Use  of 
Psychological  Analysis  in  System-Making,  Philos.  Review, 
xi.,  1902,  445  ff. ;   E.  H.  Hollands,  Wundt's  Doctrine  of 


330  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

Psychical  Analysis  and  the  Psychical  Elements,  and  Some 
Recent  Criticism:  i.  The  Criteria  of  the  Elements  and 
Attributes,  Avier.  Joiirn.  Psychol.,  xvi.,  1905,  499  ff. ; 
ii.  Feeling  and  Feeling-x\nalysis,  ibid.,  xvii.,  1906,  206  ff. 
(esp.  221,  226) ;  J.  Orth,  Gefiihl  und  Bewusstseinslage, 
eine  kritisch-ex'perimentelle  Stiidie,  1903,  20  ff. ;  Stumpf, 
Zeits.y  xliv.,  8  ff.,  34;  R.  Saxinger,  Dispositionspsycholo- 
gisches  liber  GefUhlskomplexionen,  Zeits.,  xxx.,  1902,  399; 
Ktilpe,  Outlines,  227  f . ;  Wundt,  Physiol.  Psychol,  iii., 
1903,  110  ff.,  514  f.,  552  ff. ;  G.  T.  Ladd,  Psychology, 
Descriptive  and  Explanatory:  a  Treatise  of  the  Phe- 
nomena, Laws,  and  Development  of  Human  Mental  Life 
1894,  181 ;  J.  Ward,  Psychology,  Encyc.  Britan.,  xx.,  1886, 
67;  W.  B.  Pillsbury,  Attention,  1908,  191. 

I  say,  on  p.  38,  that  nobody  confuses  organic  sensations 
with  properties  of  external  things.  This  seems  to  be  true 
of  all  the  more  specific  organic  sensations,  —  hunger, 
thirst,  nausea,  lust,  etc.  I  am  not  sure,  however,  that 
certain  organic  sensations  or  organic  complexes,  of  a 
diffuse  and  general  character,  are  not  projected  along  with 
the  accompanying  affection  into  the  outer  world.  TOiat 
do  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  '  a  pleasant  day,'  '  very  un- 
pleasant weather,'  'a  comfortable  chair,'  'an  uncomfort- 
able waiting  room '?  I  do  not  find  the  analysis  easy ;  but 
I  think  that  these  adjectives  are  applied  as  objectively,  at 
least  in  many  instances,  as  the  adjectives  'green'  or  'hot.' 
Von  Frey  points  out  (Die  Gefiihle  und  ihr  Verhdltnis  zu 
den  Empfindungen,  1894,  14)  that  cutting  and  stabbing 
weapons,  instruments  of  torture,  etc.  are  directly  appre- 
hended  as  '  schmerzhaft '  * ;  we   speak   in   English   of   a 

*Cf.  M.  Dessoir,  Arch.  f.  [Anat.  u.]  Physiol.,  1892,  230;  W. 
Nagel,  Handbuch  d.  Physiol,  d.  Menschen,  iii.,  1905,  731. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  II  331 

'painful-looking*  instrument.  Against  the  illustration  of 
p.  37  we  might  cite  such  expressions  as :  "  How  pleasant 
your  wood  fire  is  !  '* 

The  appeal  to  language  is  always  dangerous,  because  a 
given  phrase  may  mean  very  different  things.  Unless  I 
am  mistaken,  however,  we  do  at  times  objectify  our  feel- 
ings (diffuse  organic  sensations  and  affection)  *  just  as  we 
objectify  the  'secondary  qualities.'  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  this  amendment  of  the  text  does  not  at  all  invalidate, 
but  rather  supplements,  the  argument  of  the  paragraph. 
Some  sensations,  I  there  say,  are  subjective.  Affection, 
I  here  add,  is  sometimes  objective. 

^  On  the  second  criterion,  of  non-localisableness,  see  M. 
von  Frey,  Die  Gefiihle,  1894,  12;  W.  Nagel,  Handhuch 
der  Physiologie  des  Menschen,  iii.,  1905,  617;  J.  R.  Angell 
and  W.  Fite,  Psychol.  Review,  viii.,  1901,  245,  451,  455, 
458;  J.  R.  Angell,  ibid.,  x.,  1903,  5,  14;  A.  H.  Pierce, 
Studies  in  Auditory  and  Visual  Space  Perception,  1901, 
191  f. ;  Orth,  Gefiihl  und  Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  29  ff.,  f 
117  ff.;  Stumpf,  Zeits.,  xliv.,  1906,  12  ff. ;  R.  Lagerborg, 
Zur  Abgrenzung  des  Geflihlsbegriffs,  Arch.  f.  d.  ges. 
Psijchol,  ix.,  1907,  460;  Kulpe,  Outlines,  1895,  264  f., 
274;  Ebbinghaus,  Grundzuge,  i.,  1905,  564  f . ;  Wundt, 
Physiol.  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  341;  J.  Sully,  The  Human 
Mind:  a  Text-hook  of  Psychology,  ii.,  1892,  43;  W. 
McDougall,  Physiological  Psychology,  1905,  80;  Ladd, 
Psychology,  Descriptive  and  Explanatory,  1894,  182,  201, 
536  f.,  554;   Rehmke,  Lehrhuch,  1894,  323  ff. ;   T.  Lipps, 

*  In  the  same  way,  we  objectify  the  pleasantness  and  unpleasant- 
ness of  tastes  and  smells.  Cf.  the  discussion  of  Gefiihlsbetonung 
by  E.  Freiherr  von  Gebsattel,  Arch.  f.  d.  ges.  Psychol.,  x.,  1907, 
145  ff. 

t  Cf.  E.  Meumann,  Arch.  f.  d.  ges.  Psychol.,  ix.,  1907,  57  f. 


332  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

Komik  und  Humor:  eine  psychologisch-dsthetische  Unter- 
suchung,  1898,  114  f . ;  E.  Kraepelin,  Zur  Psychologic  des 
Komischen,  Philos.  Studien,  ii.,  1885,  329,  351;  A. 
Lehmann,  Die  Hauptgesetze  des  menschlichen  Gefuhls- 
lehens,  1892,  177,  201,  214,  216,  258,  267;  G.  Storring, 
Arch.f.  d.  ges.  Psychol,  vi.,  1905,  318  f . ;  P.  Sollier,  Le 
mecanisme  des  emotions,  1905,  81  ff.  (cf.  75  ff.) ;  N.  Alech- 
sieff.  Die  Grundformen  der  GefUhle,  Psychol.  Studioiy 
iii.,  1907,  259  ff. ;  C.  H.  Johnston,  The  Combination  of 
FeeHngs,  Harvard  Psychological  Studies,  ii.,  1906,  159  ff. 
(esp.  175-179) ;  cf.  Journ.  Phil.  Psychol.  Sci.  Meth.,  iv., 
1907,  215;  Psychol.  Bulletin,  ii.,  1905,  163,  166;  iv.,  1907, 
363  ff.  On  methodical  difficulties  and  the  attitude  of 
observation,  see  F.  E.  O.  Schultze,  Arch.  f.  d.  ges. 
Psychol.,  viii.,  1906,  372  ff . ;  xi.,  1908,  151  ff. 

M.  Geiger's  Bemerkungen  zur  Psychologic  der  Gefulils- 
clemcnte  und  Gefuhlsvcrbindungen  (Arch.  f.  d.  ges. 
Psychol.,  iv.,  1904,  esp.  262  ff.),  and  the  paper  by  Saxinger 
quoted  in  the  previous  Note,  published  under  the  auspices 
of  Lipps  and  of  Meinong  respectively,  rest  upon  elaborate 
theoretical  foundations,  and  arc  beyond  the  range  of  the 
present  discussion. 

®  With  this  discussion  of  the  third  criterion  cf .  Wundt, 
Grundriss  der  Psychologic,  1896,  40;  1905,  40  (Engl., 
1897,  33 ;  1907,  36) ;  Vorlesungen  Uber  die  Menschen- 
und  Thierseele,  1897,  240;  Physiol.  Psychol,  i.,  1902,  353; 
and  many  other  passages.  Rehmkc,  Lehrhuch,  1894, 
295  ff.  Stumpf,  Zeits.,  xliv.,  1906,  7  note,  17,  22.  Orth, 
GefUhl  und  Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  28  f.  Kiilpe,  Outlines, 
1895,  93,  242.  Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige,  I,  1905,  564. 
T.  Lipps,  Grundtatsachen  des  Seelenlehens,  1883,  273  ff. 
W.   Wirth,   Vorstellungs-   und   Gefuhlscontrast,   Zeits.  f. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II  333 

Psychol.,  xviii.,  1898,  49  ff.     P.  Sollier,  Le  mecanisme  des 
emotions,  1905,  244  ff.,  esp.  253. 

Lipps,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  has  recently  changed 
his  opinion  with  regard  to  '  mixed  feehngs ' ;  see  Leitfaden 
der  Psychologic,  1906,  297  f. 

'  On  Kulpe's  criterion  see  KUlpe,  Outlines,  1895,  185  f., 
225  f.,  238;  Ladd,  Psychology,  Descriptive  and  Explana- 
tory, 1894,  196,  199;  Stumpf,  Zeits.,  xHv.,  1906,  23  ff . ; 
Pillsbury,  Attention,  1908,  190  f. 

On  the  difference  between  *zufalHge  innere  Wahrneh- 
mung'  and  'planmassige  Selbstbeobachtung,'  see  Wundt, 
Essaijs,  1885,  127  ff . ;  1906,  187  S.;  Philos.  Studien,  iv., 
1888,  292  ff.   (esp.  301) ;  etc.,  etc. 

On  the  phrase  *  centrally  excited  sensations,'  see  E. 
Meumann,  Vorlesungen  zur  Einfiihrung  in  die  experi- 
mentelle  Pddagogik  und  ihre  psychologischen  Griindlagen, 
i.,  1907,  205.  It  might  be  objected  to  Kiilpe  that  the  ex- 
periments of  H.  Munsterberg  (Beitr.  z.  experiment.  Psy- 
chol, iv.,  1892,  17  ff.),  A.  Goldscheider  and  R.  F.  Muller 
{Zeits.  f.  Uin.  Medizin,  xxiii.,  1893,  156  ff.),  and  W.  B. 
Pillsbury  {Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  viii.,  1897,  355  ff.) 
indicate,  under  certain  conditions,  an  intensive  equivalence 
of  peripherally  excited  and  centrally  excited  sensations. 
KUlpe  has,  however,  forestalled  the  objection  in  Outlines, 
183. 

^  On  habituation,  see  James,  Principles,  ii.,  475  f. ; 
Stumpf,  Zeits.,  xliv.,  1906,  7  note;  Bericht  uher  d.  II. 
Kongress  f.  expcr.  Psychologic,  1907,  213;  Kiilpe,  Out- 
lines, 261;  Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige,  i.,  1905,  574  ff . ; 
A.  Lehmann,  Die  Hauptgesetze  des  menschlichen  Gefiihls- 
lehens,  1892,  182  ff. ;  Wundt,  Physiol.  Psychol,  ii.,  1902, 
332  (with  continuous  stimulation,  initial  pleasantness  may 


334  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

pass  directly,  through  indifference,  into  unpleasantness) ; 
Sollier,  Le  mecanisme  des  emotions,  1905,  97  ff.  "Use 
blunts  feeling  and  favours  intellection,"  says  Ward: 
Encyc.  Britan.,  xx.,  1886,  40. 

^  On  the  relation  of  affection  to  attention,  see  Kiilpe, 
Outlines,  1895,  258  ff.,  430;  Titchener,  Philos.  Review, 
iii.,  1894,  429  ff.  (the  systematic  setting  of  this  paper  is 
crude,  but  I  think  that  the  observations  are  reliable) ; 
Psychol.  Review,  ix.,  1902,  481  ff. ;  P.  Zoneff  and  E.  Meu- 
mann,  Philos.  Studieri,  xviii.,  1903,  4  f.,  67  ff.  (cf.  Lec- 
ture III.,  note  43) ;  W.  B.  Pillsbury,  Psychol.  Review,  ix., 
1902,  405;  Meumann,  Experimentelle  Pddagogik,  i.,  1907, 
82;  W.  Hamilton,  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  1859,  i.,  236; 
ii.,  432;  J.  Ward,  Psychology,  Encyc.  Britan.,  xx.,  1886, 
40  ff. ;  Hollands,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xvii.,  1906,  211; 
Wundt,  Phijsiol.  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  357;  iii.,  1903,  114, 
348;  Saxinger,  Zeits.,  xxx.,  1902,  400,  412;  A.  Lehmann, 
Die  kdrperlichen  Aeusserungen  psychischer  Zustdnde,  i., 
1899,  140  ff. ;  W.  H.  Burnham,  A7ner.  Journ.  Psychol., 
xix.,  1908,  16;  F.  E.  O.  Schultze,  Arch.  /.  d.  ges.  Psychol., 
viii.,  1906,  373. 

Sully  says  definitely  (Human  Mind,  i.,  1892,  77)  that 
"we  can  intensify  a  pain  or  pleasure  by  attending  to  it  as 
such,"  —  as  definitely  as  he  says  (ibid.,  143)  that  "objects 
of  attention  are  either  sensations,  and  their  combinations, 
sensation-complexes,  or  what  we  call  ideas  or  representa- 
tions." But  he  counts  'bodily  pain,'  'the  pain  of  indiges- 
tion' as  an  'affective  state,'  and  admits  that  "in  attending 
to  the  feeling  we  necessarily  embrace  [the  presentative 
element]  to  some  extent."  It  is  true,  as  he  remarks,  that 
"to  listen  to  a  musical  sound  so  as  to  note  its  pitch,  etc., 
and  to  listen  to  it  solely  for  the  sake  of  enjoying  it,  illustrate 


NOTES   TO   LECTURE  II  335 

two  different  directions  of  the  attention";  but  there  is 
here  no  evidence  of  direction  of  the  attention  upon  the 
enjoyment,  and  the  latter's  consequent  intensification. 
Cf.  also  i.,  67;    ii.,  12. 

In  his  Attention,  1908,  187,  Pillsbury  writes:  "as  mat- 
ters stand,  the  introspective  evidence  is  universally  favour- 
able to  the  assertion  that  attention  is  antagonistic  to  the 
pleasantness-unpleasantness  process  as  well  as  to  the 
vague  unanalysed  processes  of  consciousness."  The  first 
part  of  this  sentence,  at  any  rate,  confirms  my  own  position. 
On  another  point,  however,  Pillsbury  seems  to  disagree. 
"  Of  Wundt's  three  pairs,"  he  says,  "  strain  and  relaxation 
w^ould  not  be  opposed  to  attending.  ...  Of  depression 
and  exaltation  it  is  difficult  to  speak,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  attention  to  these  processes  would  either 
oppose  or  favour  their  presence"  (187  f.).  I  think  that 
the  disagreement  is  only  apparent.  Pillsbury  is  con- 
sidering the  Wundtian  processes,  so  to  speak,  on  their 
merits,  as  they  occur  in  his  experience ;  I  am  setting  forth 
Wundt's  own  doctrine.  I  believe  with  Hollands  that 
feeling,  in  Wundt's  system,  cannot  be  made  the  object  of 
attention;  and  I  find  this  teaching  in  his  tridimensional 
theory  as  in  the  theory  of  affective  tone.  Nevertheless, 
I  point  out  in  Lecture  VIII.  that  Wundt's  present  view  of 
the  relation  of  affection  to  attention  is,  in  my  judgment, 
transitional,  and  I  therefore  regard  it  as  possible  that  his 
systematic  position  may  be  changed. 

^^  The  idea  of  this  paragraph  is  that  the  criterion  of  move- 
ment between  opposites  may  be  coupled  with  that  of 
coextension  with  consciousness,  —  opposition  meaning,  in 
fact,  conscious  incompatibility;  and  that  the  criterion  of 
lack  of  clearness  may  be  coupled  with  that  of  subjec- 


336  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II 

tivity,  —  lack  of  clearness  implying  a  textural  difference 
between  sensation  and  affection,  which  finds  expression 
in  the  term  'subjective.'  We  thus  reach  a  twofold  char- 
acterisation of  affection,  to  be  explained  and  justified  by 
psychophysical  theory.  I  think  that  this  bracketing 
"considerably  strengthens  the  case  for  an  elementary 
affection."  We  are  led  by  it,  e.g.,  to  mistrust  the  instances 
of  localised  affection,  such  as  occur  in  Storring's  experi- 
ments. Storring,  it  will  be  remembered,  secured  Stim- 
mungslust  and  Empfindiingslust  by  the  following  experi- 
mental procedure  :  "  wahrend  man  bei  der  Erzeugung  von 
Lust,  die  an  eine  Geschmacksempfindung  gekniipft  ist, 
die  Geschmackslosung  wahrend  der  Dauer  des  Versuchs  im 
Munde  behalten  lasst,  gab  ich  zum  Zweck  der  Erzeugung 
von  Stimmungslust  der  Vp.  die  Anweisung,  die  Losung 
zu  schlucken  und  dann  von  der  Empfindung  abzusehen, 
mit  dem  Schlucken  den  Geschmacksreiz  als  eine  erledigte 
Tatsache  zu  betrachten"  {Arch.  f.  d.  ges.  Psychol. ,  vi., 
1905,  317).  It  is  clear  that  the  instructions  are  not  paral- 
lel: so  long  as  the  fluid  is  in  the  mouth,  the  observer's 
attention  is  upon  it,  and  the  affection  is  localised  along 
with  its  sensation  (cf .  Note  4,  above) ;  when  the  fluid  has 
been  swallowed,  and  the  taste  is  past  and  done  with,  the 
affection  is  not  localised.  So  much  depends  upon  the 
conditions !  But  let  the  instructions  be  made  parallel : 
let  the  observer  be  told,  in  the  experiments  on  Empjiridungs- 
lust,  to  consider  the  taste  as  past  and  done  with  so  soon 
as  it  has  come  clearly  to  consciousness;  let  the  retention 
in  the  mouth  be  merely  a  matter  of  convenience,  of  not 
interrupting  the  experiment.  In  this  case,  if  I  may  trust 
my  own  introspection  and  that  of  three  other  obser\^ers, 
there  is  no  localisation  of  the  pleasantness;    it  is  of  pre- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II  337 

cisely  the  same  character  as  the  pleasantness  after  swallow- 
ing. However,  the  subject  needs  renewed  investigation 
of  a  systematic  kind. 

We  have  an  analogy  to  the  argument  of  the  text  in  the 
position  of  those  psychologists  who  make  the  image  a  dis- 
tinct mental  element,  coordinate  with  sensation.  'You 
cannot  distinguish  sensation  and  image  on  the  ground  of 
quality  alone,  or  of  intensity,  or  of  duration,  or  of  exten- 
sion, or  of  clearness.  Can  you  not  distinguish  them  in 
terms  of  the  consensus  of  these  attributes  ?  Is  there  not  a 
total  textural  difference  between  the  two  processes  ? '  This, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  the  gist  of  the  separatist  argument,  when 
it  is  couched  in  terms  of  content.  No  doubt,  there  is,  in 
the  case  of  the  image,  a  further  appeal  to  characteristic 
differences  of  context  or  background  or  setting. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  III 

^  B.  Bourdon,  La  sensation  de  plaisir,  Rev.  philos.y 
Sept.,  1893,  226  f. 

'M.  von  Frey,  Die  Gefilhle,  1894,  14  f.,  17.  —  In  this 
connection,  mention  should  also  be  made,  perhaps,  of 
Sollier's  recent  theory  of  'cenesthesie  cerebrale':  Le 
mecaiiisme  des  emotionSy  1905,  esp.  192  ff.,  257  f. 

'  Op.  city  227  f. 

^  See,  e.g.y  Rep.,  ix.,  583  D;  Phaedo,  60  A;  Phil.y  51. 

^  Bericht  iiber  den  II.  Kongress  filr  experimentelle  Psy- 
chologiey  1907,  209  if.;  Zeits.,  xliv.,  1906,  1  ff.  On  p.  15, 
Stumpf  makes  the  terminological  suggestion  that  Gefuhls- 
empfindung  be  rendered  by  'emotional  sensation.'  This 
translation  seems  to  me  hardly  possible;  the  English 
equivalent  would  be,  I  think,  either  'affective  sensation' 
or  *algedonic  sensation.'  The  adjective  'algedonic'  was 
coined  by  H.  R.  Marshall  {Pain,  Pleasure  and  J^sthetics, 
1894,  9),  not  —  as  Stumpf  and  Lagerborg  (Arch.  f.  d. 
ges.  Psychol. y  ix.,  1907,  454)  say  —  by  Baldwin.  In  a 
systematic  connection  I  should  prefer  the  phrase  '  algedonic 
sensation';  for  the  purposes  of  this  Lecture  its  introduc- 
tion appeared  unnecessary. 

«Pp.  1  ff. 

'  Pp.  2  ff . 

'  Outlines,  1895,  227  f. 

'  i.,  282. 

^"  T.  Ziehen,  Leitfaden  der  physiologischen  Psychologic 
in  15  Vorlesungen,  1906,  162  note. 

338 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III  339 


"  P.  5  note. 
''  P.  4. 

13 


H.  R.  Marshall,  President's  Address,  American  Psy- 
chological Association,  Chicago  Meeting,  December,  1907: 
The  Methods  of  the  Naturalist  and  Psychologist,  Psychol. 
Rev.,  XV.,  1908,  16  f.  "If  we  could  isolate  psychic  ele- 
ments, ...  we  would  [sic]  discover  in  connection  with 
them  elemental  qualities  ...  of  the  nature  of  pain  and 
pleasure." 

"  T.  Ziegler,  Das  Gefiihl :  eine  psychologische  Unter- 
suchung,  1893,  100.     Cf.  Stumpf,  p.  43  note. 

^^  P.  6.  —  Under  the  theory  which  makes  the  affective 
processes  "eine  neue  Gattung  psychischer  Elemente, 
Zustande  oder  Funktionen,  die  weder  Empfindungen  noch 
Eigenschaften  von  Empfindungen  sind"  (p.  3),  falls  the 
view  which  considers  them  as  *Gestaltqualitaten.'  In 
Bericht,  213,  Stumpf  definitely  rejects  this  view.  I  must 
say,  however,  that  he  seems  to  me  to  come  very  near  it 
in  his  doctrine  of  the  'ReinheitsgefUhl,'  the  feeling  for  the 
purity  of  consonant  intervals:  see  F.  Krueger,  Bericht, 
212;  Psychol.  Studien,  ii.,  1906,  371  f.,  375  ff.  (where  full 
references  are  given).  At  any  rate,  we  are  here  far  re- 
moved from  the  positive  rejection  of  mental  chemistry, 
from  the  "Aus  Nichts  wird  Nichts,"  of  the  Towpsy- 
chologie  (ii.,  1890,  209,  525,  etc.). 

''  Pp.  6  ff. 

^'  Pp.  15  ff. 

^«  P.  18. 

"  P.  21. 

'« P.  19. 

'^  Pp.  16  f. 

^^A.  Goldscheider,  Gesam.  AbhandL,  i.,  1898,  411  f . ; 
^Stumpf,  pp.  19  note,  21. 


340  NOTES  TO   LECTURE  III 

2^  P.  19. 

^'  Pp.  16  f. 

^  Pp.  19  f. 

2«  Pp.  2,  22. 

2^  P.  21. 

"^  See,  ^.^r.,  Kulpe,  Outlines,  124. 

2^H.  Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige,  i.,  1905,  581;  cf.  R. 
Lagerborg,  Z)a5  Gefilhlsproblem,  1905,  95;  P.  Sollier,  Ze 
mccanisme  des  emotions,  1905,  244,  254  f. 

'« M.  Kelchner,  ^rc/i./  d.  ges.  Psychol,  v.,  1905,  86. 

3^  Pp.  21  f. 

^2  P.  22. 

^^  Pp.  22,  38  f .  In  the  latter  passage  Stumpf,  while  still 
leaving  the  question  open,  indicates  his  own  belief  in  a 
plurality  of  affective  qualities. 

^^  Let  it  not  be  objected  that  these  Lttstempjindungen  are 
sensations  of  pleasure  for  the  reason  that  they  "ein  in- 
stinktives  Annehmen  und  Begehren  mit  sich  zu  fUhren 
pflegen"  (p.  22)  !  For  on  p.  16  it  is  written:  "die  An- 
nehmlichkeit  ist  nicht  das  Annehmen  und  der  Schmerz 
nicht  das  Ablehnen." 

^'  Pp.  26  ff. 

'«  Pp.  27  f . 

"  P.  28. 

''  P.  29. 

^^  P.  31 ;  Tonpsychologie,  ii.,  1890,  209. 

''  Pp.  29  f . 

"  E.g.,  pp.  18  note,  21,  22,  23,  26,  27,  29  f.,  36,  39  f. 

''P.  2;  cf.  p.  41. 

'^E.  W.  Scripture,  Vorstellung  und  Gefuhl,  Philos. 
Studien,  vi.,  1891,  536  ff . ;  O.  Vogt,  Die  directe  psycholo- 
gische    Experimentalmethode    in  hypnotischen    Bewusst- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III  341 

seinszustanden,  Zeits.  f.  Hypnotismus,  v.,  1897,  180  ff. ; 
F.  Kiesow,  Sul  metodo  di  studiare  i  sentimenti  semplici, 
Rendiconti  delta  r.  Accademia  dei  Lincei,  Classe  di  scienze 
Jis.y  mat.  e  natur.,  (5)  viii.,  1,  1899,  469  ff. 

Kiesow*s  experiments  were  made  as  follows.  He  first 
determined  two  areas  of  the  tongue  that  were  equally 
sensitive  to  sweet,  and  platted  the  curve  of  sensible  dis- 
crimination. He  then  gave  his  observers  preliminary 
practice  "a  distrarre  la  loro  attenzione  dalla  sensazione 
e  a  concentrarla  esclusivamente  sul  tono  sentimentale 
(Gefuhlston)  che  accompagna  ogni  grado  di  sensazione.'* 
The  instruction  is,  evidently,  ambiguous  (cf.  reference  to 
Zoneff  and  Meumann,  Lecture  II.,  note  9).  Kiesow 
naturally  found,  in  consequence,  that  "in  sulle  prime 
queste  esperienze  sono  diflBcili  e  affaticanti :  in  alcune 
persone  mi  pare  di  non  essere  potuto  giungere  a  una 
sufficiente  concentrazione  delF  attenzione  sul  tono  senti- 
mentale; esse  erano  sempre  distratte  passivamente  dalla 
sensazione.  ...  In  altri  soggetti  coll'  esercizio  si  puo 
giungere  al  punto  da  poter  astrarre  dalla  sensazione  in 
modo  sufficiente."  After  practice,  he  began  systematic 
work  upon  pleasantness-unpleasantness,  and  platted  an 
affective  curve,  starting  with  the  RL  and  employing  the 
DL  as  unit  of  abscissas.  The  curve  shows,  first,  a  stage 
of  indifference ;  next,  a  stage  of  slowly  increasing  pleasant- 
ness; thirdly,  a  second  stage  of  indifference;  and  lastly 
a  stage  of  somewhat  rapidly  increasing  unpleasantness. 
Kiesow  remarks  that  "  nella  curva  cosi  ottenuta  le  ordinate 
non  sono  stabilite  numericamente  con  una  precisione 
eguale  a  quella  delle  ascisse."  He  gives  no  further  details, 
and  does  not  figure  the  curves. 

^*  Affective  Memory,  Philos.  Rev.,  iv.,  1895,  Q5  ff.     See 


342  NOTES  TO   LECTURE  III 

T.  Ribot,  The  Psychology  of  the  Emotions,  1897,  140  ff. 
A  reference  to  the  recent  annual  bibliographies  will  show 
that  the  subject  is  still  in  debate.  I  find  it  discussed, 
e.g.,  by  W.  Heinrich,  La  psych ologie  des  sentiments 
{Bull,  de  VAcad.  des  Sciences  de  Cracovicy  Jan.,  1908,  36), 
which  reaches  me  as  these  pages  are  passing  through  the 
press. 

^^  Organic  Images,  Journ.  Phil.  Psychol.  Sci.  Meth.,  i., 
1904,  36  ff. 

'« P.  23. 

^^  P.  25.  —  The  illustration  is  the  more  striking  since 
G.  H.  Meyer,  a  highly  practised  observer,  declares  his 
inability  to  reproduce  cutaneous  sensations  of  intrinsi- 
cally brief  duration.  "  Auf  der  Haut  gelingt  es  mir  leicht, 
an  welcher  Stelle  ich  will,  subjective  Empfindungen  her- 
vorzubringen.  Weil  aber  langere  Unterhaltung  der  Ans- 
chauung  dazu  nothwendig  ist,  kann  ich  nur  solche  Emp- 
findungen wecken,  welche  langere  Zeit  andauern,  wie 
Warme,  Kuhle,  Druck;  schnell  vorubergehende  dagegen, 
wie  von  einem  Stich,  Schnitt,  Schlag,  etc.,  vermag  ich 
nicht  hervorzurufen,  weil  es  mir  nicht  gelingt^  die  entsprech- 
enden  Anschauungen  so  ex  abrupto  in  der  gehorigen  In- 
tensitdt  zu  wecken''  {Untersuchungen  uher  die  Physiologic 
der  Nervenfasery   1843,  238:  italics  mine).*     Personally, 

*  Meyer's  work  is  not  in  the  possession  of  any  one  of  the  four 
university  Hbraries  to  which  I  am  accustomed  to  appeal.  It  may, 
however,  be  procured  from  the  Librarian  of  the  Surgeon  General's 
Office,  Washington,  D.C.  I  may  mention  here  —  since  I  find  that 
the  fact  is  less  generally  known  than  it  deserves  to  be  —  that  the 
Surgeon  General's  Library  is  admirably  supplied  with  the  older 
and  scarcer  books  that  bear  upon  experimental  psychology.  A 
postcard  from  the  librarian  of  any  college  or  university  library  will 
bring  the  required  volumes,  usually  by  return,  and  they  may  be 
held  for  a  fortnight. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  III  343 

I  can  image  pressure  and,  I  think,  warmth;  I  cannot 
image  pain,  and  I  am  very  dubious  as  regards  cold.  See 
my  Organic  Images,  38  f.,  and  cf.  F.  E.  O.  Schultze, 
Arch.  f.  d.  ges.  Psychol.,  xi.,  1908,  157  f.,  185  f. 

^«  P.  26. 

^^  See,  however,  pp.  35  note,  47.  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
understand  Stumpf s  doctrine  as  regards  rhythmical, 
formal,  and  harmonic  feelings. 

''  Pp.  31  f. 

'^  P.  32. 

^^  G.  T.  Fechner,  Elemeiite  der  Psychophysik,  i.,  1889, 
75  (see  also  refs.  given  in  my  Exper.  Psychol.,  II.,  ii.,  1905, 
Ixviii.) ;    Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige,  i.,  1905,  91. 

^^  W.  Nagel,  Handhiich  d.  Physiol,  d.  Menschen,  iii., 
1905,  620. 

^'  P.  36. 

='  Pp.  32  f . 

^«  Pp.  33  fif. 

"  P.  36. 

"'  Pp.  33,  37. 

''  Pp.  37  f. 

^^  By  the  admission  of  instances  from  the  field  of  emo- 
tion and  of  aesthetic  and  intellectual  sentiment.  See,  how- 
ever. Note  49  above;   and  cf.  Stumpf,  pp.  33  ff. 

^'  Pp.  38  f . 

I  may  add  that,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  American  libra- 
ries contain  practically  everything  that  is  needed  for  historical 
research  in  experimental  psychology.  In  the  preparation  of  my 
Exper.  Psychol.  I  had  to  read  a  great  many  out-of-the-way  things ; 
but  there  were  very  few  instances  in  which  I  was  obliged  to  have 
final  recourse  to  European  collections.  As  the  great  majority  of 
the  large  libraries  —  there  are  a  few  bad  exceptions !  —  are 
courtesy  itself  in  the  matter  of  lending,  there  is  no  excuse  for 
'ignorance  of  the  literature'  on  the  part  of  the  American  student. 


344  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

«'  Pp.  39  f. 

«'  GrundzUge,  i.,  1905,  5m. 

''  Pp.  41  ff. 

«'  Pp.  42,  48  f. 

««  Pp.  42  f.,  44. 

«^  Pp.  43  f . 

®^  See,  ^.^.,  R.  H.  Lotze,  Medicinische  Psychologie  oder 
Physiologie  der  Seele,  1852,  254  f. ;    Stumpf,  p.  32. 

*'P.  44;  Ebbinghaiis,  GrundzUge,  i.,  1905,  582  f. 

'"^  Outlines,  1895,  228  ff. 

''  Op.  ciL,  577. 

''  Pp.  44  f . 

''  P.  45. 

''  Pp.  45  ff . 

''  P.  46. 

^«  P.  47. 

^^  Tonpsychologie,  ii.,  1890,  vii.  In  Note  15  above  I 
have  expressed  a  certain  misgiving  as  regards  Stumpf  s 
doctrine  of  the  Tongefiihle. 

'«  P.  48. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  IV 

'  Physiol.  Psychol,  i.,  1893,  555  f.,  561,  570  f. 

""Grundriss  der  Psychologie,  1896,  33  f.,  36,  39  ff.,  97  f., 
100  (Engl.,  1897,  28  f.,  30,  33  ff.,  82  f.,  84  f.) ;  cf.  1905, 
34  f.,  36,  39  ff.,  99  f.,  101  (Engl.,  1907,  31  f.,  32  f.,  35  ff., 
91  f.,  93). 

^  This  is,  I  am  convinced,  the  true  version  of  a  state  of 
affairs  which  James  has  unwittingly  misrepresented  in 
Psychol.  Review,  i.,  1894,  72  f. 

^Physiol.  Psychol.,  1874,  445.  The  passage  which  re- 
lates to  the  aesthetic  value  of  the  higher  senses  is  retained, 
with  some  modification  of  context,  in  the  edition  of  1893 
(i.,  571) ;  but  the  important  thing  is  the  insertion,  in  that 
edition,  of  the  new  paragraph,  i.,  561. 

^Ibid.,  1874,  426;  i.,  1893,  555. 

®  Gefilhl  U7id  Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  49;  Wundt,  Grund- 
riss,  1896,  97  ff.  (Engl.,  82  ff.) ;  cf.  1905,  99  ff.  (Engl., 
1907,  91  ff.). 

'Physiol.  Psychol.,  1874,  441,  721. 

Ubid.,  u.,  1902,  284  ff. 

""Grundriss,  1896,  100,  213  (Engl.,  85,  181);  cf.  1905, 
101,  217  (Engl.,  1907,  93,  202). 

^"^  Zeits.,  xliv.,  1906,  7  f.  note. 

"  Grundriss,  1896,  103  (Engl.,  88).  Cf.  1905,  103  ff. 
(Engl.,  1907,  95  ff.). 

^^  Vorlesungen  iiher  die  Menschen-  und  Thierseele,  1897, 
224  ff. 

*^  Philos.  Studien,  xv.,  1900,  151. 

345 


346  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

"  This  Lecture  was  not  printed ;  but  the  material  upon 
which  it  was  based  may  be  found  in  H.  C.  Stevens'  A 
Plethysmographic  Study  of  Attention,  Amer.  Journ. 
Psychol,  xvi.,  1905,  48!2. 

"  Grundriss,  1896,  35  (Engl.,  29) ;  cf.  1905,  35  (Engl., 
1907,  32). 

''  Cf.  my  note  in  Psychol  Bulletin,  iv.,  1907,  367  f. 

^' Grundriss,  1896,  99  f.  (Engl.,  84  f.).  This  §  9  is 
omitted  in  1905. 

^^  Philos.  Studien,  xv.,  1900,  177. 

^^  Vorlesungen,  1897,  238. 

"'^  Ibid.,  239. 

^^Ihid.,  239  f. 

^''Physiol  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  311  ff.,  318  f.,  326,  333, 
336  f.  The  intensive  reference  of  Lust-Unlust  indicates 
a  return  to  the  teaching  of  1874 ;  see  Note  4  above. 

'^  Ihid.,  374. 

^^  Cf.  Wundt's  own  statement  in  Grundriss,  1896,  96 
(Engl.,  81);   cf.  1905,  98  (Engl.,  1907,  90). 

^^  Philos.  Shidien,  xv.,  1900,  175. 

'^  Grundriss,  1896,  98  (cf.  1905,  99) ;  Physiol  Psychol, 
ii.,  1902,  286,  295. 

^'Physiol  Psychol,  1874,  724;  Vorlesungen,  1897,  238. 
In  Physiol  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  253  f.,  306  f.  (cf.  Grundriss, 
1896,  256;  1905,  265),  the  Erfiillungsgefiihl  appears  as  a 
total  feeling,  based  essentially  upon  relaxation  and  tran- 
quillisation :  cf.,  however,  347.  Befriedigung  (iii.,  221) 
is  a  Lustaffect:  the  Totalgefiihl  will  then  be  based  upon 
pleasantness  and  relaxation. 

^^Vorlesungen,  1897,  228;    Grundriss,  1905,  105. 

^®A.  Gurewitsch,  Zur  Geschichte  des  Achtungsbegriffes 
und  zur  Theorie  der  sittlichen  Gefilhle,  Wurzburg  dissert., 
1897. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  IV  347 

^^  O.  Vogt,  Normalpsychologische  Einleitiing  in  die 
Psychopathologie  der  Hysteric,  Zeits.  f.  Hypnotismus, 
viii.,  1899,  212. 

^^Phijsiol  Ps7jchoL,  iii.,  1903,  249. 

^2  J.  Royce,  Outlines  of  Psychologij,  1903,  176  ff. 

^^Philos.  Studien,  xv.,  1900,  172  f. 

^'  J.  Cohn,  Philos.  Studien,  x.,  1894,  562  ff . ;  xv.,  1899, 
279  ff.  D.  R.  Major,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  vii.,  1895, 
57  ff. 

^'"Physiol  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  285. 

^^  Locc.  citt. 

^'  Phijsiol.  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  333. 

3«  Ihid.,  332. 

""^Ihid.,  335. 

''  Ibid.,  336  f. 

'^  Grundriss,  1896,  96  (Engl.,  81) ;  cf.  1905,  98  (Engl., 
1907,  90). 

^''Ihid.,  99  (Engl.,  84);  cf.  1905,  101  (Engl.,  1907,  93). 

''  Vorlesungen,   1897,  235  ff. 

^^  Physiol.  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  290. 

^^Ihid.,  290  f. 

^®  G.  T.  Ladd,  Psychology,  Descr.  and  Explan.,  1894, 
167  ff. 

*'  Ibid.,  537. 

*^  Psychol  Review,  I,  1894,  525. 

^*  T.  Lipps,  Vo7n  Fuhlen,  Wollen  und  Denken,  1902. 

^"^  Zeits.,  xliv.,  1906,  38  f. 

^^  H.  Hoffding,  Psijchologie  in  Umrissen,  1887,  279; 
1893,  305;  Eng.  tr.,  1891,  222.  Klilpc,  Outlines,  1895, 
232  f.  F.  Jodl,  Lehrbuch  d.  Psijchol,  1896,  378  f . ;  ii., 
1903,  1  ff.  Ebbinghaus,  Gnindziige,  l,  1905,  564  ff. 
A.  Lehmann,  Hauptgesetze  d.  menschl.  Gefiihlslebens,  1892, 
32.    J.  Rchmkc,  Zur  Lehre  vom  Gemiit,  1898,  47  ff. 


348  NOTES  TO   LECTURE  IV 

^2  Grundziige,  i.,  1905,  566. 

^  Gefiihl  und  Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  39. 

^*  Psychol. y  Descr.  and  Explan.y  183.  "Nor  is  he  who 
has  felt  that  joy  of  scientific  discovery  which  Niebuhr 
compared  to  the  divine  feehng  in  view  of  a  new-made 
universe,  Hkely  to  confuse  it,  as  respects  distinctive  quahty, 
with  the  sensuous  thrill  of  gratified  bodily  appetite,"  etc. 

^^  Das  Selbstbewusstsein,  Empfindung  mid  Gefiihl,  1901, 
14. 

'«  Grundrissy  1896,  188  f.  (Engl.,  160) ;  cf.  190.5,  192  f. 
(Engl.,  1907,  178  f.);  Physiol  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  344  f. 

^^  Gnmdriss,  187  f.  (Engl.,  159  f.) ;  cf.  1905,  191  f. 
(Engl.,  1907,  177  f.) ;  Vorlesungen,  234  ff . ;  Physiol 
Psychol,  ii.,  341  ff.  The  doctrine  varies  a  little,  from 
time  to  time,  but  is  in  principle  as  I  state  it  in  the  text. 
It  goes  back  as  far  as  the  essay  on  Gefiihl  mid  Vorstellung 
{Essays,  1885,  213;  Vjs.  f  wiss.  Philos.,  iii.,  1879,  143), 
but  appears  clearly  for  the  first  time  in  the  Vorlesungen 
of  1892. 

^*  Wundt  speaks,  both  in  Grundriss  and  in  Physiol 
Psychol,  of  the  'musical'  tone,  the  'musical'  triad:  my 
demonstration  w^as  made  with  tuning  forks.  I  do  not 
think  that  objection  can  be  taken  to  the  change,  since 
musical  reference,  aesthetic  association,  must  in  any  event 
be  ruled  out.  Personally,  I  get  the  same  result  with  har- 
monica! or  piano  chords,  except  that  the  musical  reference 
is,  with  them,  much  more  difficult  to  exclude.  The  ob- 
servation, to  be  strictly  valid,  should  be  varied  as  Wundt 
suggests. 

^^  Physiol  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  42  ff.  It  is  very  interest- 
ing, in  this  connection,  —  and,  indeed,  in  connection  with 
the   general   subject   of  the   present   Lecture,  —  to   read 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV  349 

Wundt*s  account  of  GemeingefUhly  in  Beitrdge  zur  Theorie 
der  Sinneswahrnehmung,  1862,  376-400. 

*^  Arch.f.  d.  ges.  Psychol.,  ix.,  1907,  Literaturbericht,  94. 
Meumann  himself  has  recently  published  an  extended 
article  on  the  subject:    Arch.,  ix.,  1907,  26  ff. 

«^  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol,  xvi.,  1905,  212.  Cf.  T.  Lipps, 
Das  Selhsthewusstsein :  Empfindung  und  Gefilhl,  1901,  24; 
M.  Kelchner,  Arch.f.  d.  g.  Psychol.,  v.,  1905,  124. 

*2  Grundzuge,  l,  1905,  567. 

^Zeits.,  xliv.,  1906,  2  note. 

^  Cf.  Wundt's  doctrine  in  Physiol  Psychol,  l,  1893,  561. 

®^  O.  Vogt,  Zur  Kenntnis  des  Wesens  und  der  psy- 
chologischen  Bedeutung  des  Hypnotismus,  Zeits.  f.  Hypno- 
tisnius,  iv.,  1896,  127.  Cf.  Grundriss,  1905,  102  (Engl, 
1907,  94). 

^®  Gefuhl  und  Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  129. 

®^  G.  Storring,  Arch.f.  d.  ges.  Psychol,  vi.,  1905,  320  f. 
I  am  not  even  sure  that  the  first  of  the  phrases  quoted  re- 
fers to  quality  at  all ;  the  complete  sentence  runs :  "  Stim- 
mungslust  ist  gleichartiger,  die  Lust  erfullt  mehr  das 
Bewusstsein.'*  It  may  be  that  these  two  clauses  express 
the  same  fact  in  different  terms.  Storring  himself  sums 
up  in  the  words :  "  uber  Qualitat  der  beiden  Lustzustande 
machen  alle  drei  Vp.  die  Angabe,  es  liege  deutliche  quali- 
tative Differenz  vor."  Why  does  he  not  quote  their 
words .^  He  goes  on:  "ich  lege  aber  auf  diese  Ueber- 
einstimmung  kein  Gewicht,  weil  diese  Aussage  von  .  .  . 
der  Annahme  der  Realitat  qualitativer  Differenzen  .  .  . 
(die  ich  iibrigens  selbst  akzeptiere),  abhiingig  sein  kann." 

®®  Ein  Versuch,  die  Methode  der  paarweisen  Verglei- 
chung  auf  die  verschiedenen  Gefuhlsrichtungen  anzu- 
wenden,  Philos.  Studien,  xx.,  1902,  382  ff. ;   S.  P.  Hayes, 


350  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV 

A  Study  of  the  Affective  Qualities,  i.  The  Tridimen- 
sional Theory  of  Feeling,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xvii., 

1906,  358  ff.  I  must  refer  the  reader  for  details  to  these 
two  articles,  in  both  of  which  the  '  curves '  of  the  affective 
judgments  are  figured.  Criticisms  are  met  in  the  latter 
article  (361  note),  and  also  in  my  note  on  N.  Alechsieff's 
Die    Grundformen    der    Gefuhle    {Psychol.    Studien,  iii., 

1907,  156  ff.),  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xix.,  1908,  138  ff. 

^^  Physiol.  Psychol.,  ii.,  1902,  287.  "So  viel  man  auch 
mit  der  Eindrucksmethode  hin  und  her  experimentiren 
oder  die  unten  zu  erorternden  Ergebnisse  der  Ausdrucks- 
methode  zu  Hulfe  nehmen  mag,  immer  kommt  man  bei 
der  Analyse  der  concreten  Gefuhlszustande  oder  der 
zusammengesetzteren  Gemiithsbewegungen  wieder  auf 
diese  [drei  Gegensatzpaaren]  zuriick."  I  read  this  posi- 
tive statement  with  surprise  when  it  appeared ;  but,  what- 
ever grounds  Wundt  may  have  had  for  it  in  1902,  there  is 
small  evidence  of  it  in  1908.  Possibly  for  this  reason 
Wundt,  in  his  latest  exposition  (ibid.,  i.,  1908,  23  ff.), 
speaks  very  disparagingly  of  the  Reizmethode  as  an 
affective  method. 

^^  M.  Brahn,  Experimentelle  Beitrage  zur  Geflihlslehre, 
Philos.  Studien,  xviii.,  1903,  127  ff. ;  W.  Gent,  Volumpuls- 
curven  bei  Gefuhlen  und  Affecten,  ibid.,  715  ff.  Wundt, 
Physiol.  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  274,  291  ff.  Orth,  Gefiihl  und 
Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  58  ff. 

^^  A  first  critique  of  Wundt's  theory,  under  the  title  Zur 
Kritik  der  Wundfschcn  Geflihlslehre,  will  be  found  in 
Zeits.,  xix.,  1899,  321  ff.  A  detailed  Kritik  der  modernen 
Gefuhlslehre  (Lipps  and  Wundt)  is  given  by  Orth,  op.  cit., 
20  ff. 

Lipps'  doctrine  of  feeling  may  be  studied  in   Grundtat- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV  351 

sachen  des  Seelenlebens,  1883,  15  ff.,  177  ff. ;  Bemerkungen 
zur  Theorie  der  Gefiihle,  Vjs.f.  wiss.  Philos.,  xiii.,  1889, 
160  fF. ;  Gottingische  gelchrte  Anzeigen,  1894,  85  ff. ; 
Komik  und  Humor,  1898;  Das  Selbstbewusstsein :  Emp- 
Jindung  und  Gefiihly  1901 ;  Vom  Filhlen,  Wollen  und 
Denken,  1902;  Aesthetik:  Psychologie  des  Schonen  und 
der  Kunst.  I.  Grundlegung  der  Aesthetik,  1903,  Abschn.  i., 
vi. ;  Psychologische  Studien,  1905 ;  Leitfaden  der  Psy- 
chologie, 1906,  281  ff. ;  and  numerous  articles  in  psy- 
chological journals. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  V 

*  Philos.  Studien,  x.,  1894,  124.  Wundt  gives  illustra- 
tions, 123  f. 

^  As  seen,  e.g.,  in  Kiilpe,  Outlines,  1895,  169  fF. ;  Wundt, 
Physiol.  Psychol.,  iii.,  1903,  518  ff. ;  Ebbinghaus,  Grund- 
zuge,  i.,  1905,  633  fF. 

^  Meumann  says  (Exper.  PddagogiJc,  i.,  1907,  326  note) : 
"wer  den  ganzen  Fortschritt  der  experimentellen  Psy- 
chologie  gegeniiber  der  friiheren  Psychologie  der  inneren 
Wahrnehmung  deutlich  vor  Augen  haben  will,  der  ver- 
gleiche  die  in  den  folgenden  Ausfuhrungen  dargestellten 
Methoden  und  Ergebnisse  der  experimentellen  Forschung 
individueller  Unterschiede  mit  dem,  was  ein  so  geistvoller 
Vertreter  der  alteren  Psychologie  wie  Sigv\'^art  liber  unser 
Problem  zu  sagen  wusste.  Vgl.  Sigwart,  Die  Unterschiede 
der  Individualitaten.  Kleine  Schriften,  Bd.  ii.  [1889] 
S.  212  ff." 

'  Cf .  my  Experimental  Psychology,  I.,  ii.,  1901,  186; 
W.  James,  Pri7ic.  of  Psychol.,  i.,  1890,  402. 

^  W.  Hamilton,  Lect.  on  Metaphysics,  i.,  1859,  237  ff. 

^  J.  Mill,  Analysis  of  the  Phenomena  of  the  Human 
Mind,  ii.,  1869,  369  ff.,  with  the  notes  by  J.  S.  Mill  and 
A.  Bain. 

^  A.  Bain,  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  1880,  370  ff.,  540; 
The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  1868,  558. 

*  D.  Braunschweiger,  Die  Lehre  von  der  Aufmerksam- 
keit  in  der  Psychologie  des  18.  Jahrhmiderts,  1899,  2. 

®  Lectures  on  Human  and  Animal  Psychology,  1896,  270. 

352 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V  353 

^^  Unfortunately,  the  knowledge  often  acts  as  a  deterrent, 
—  James,  here  as  elsewhere,  serving  as  excuse  {Psychol. 
Rev.,  i.,  1894,  516  note).  I  had  hoped  a  good  deal  from 
the  publication  of  Wundt's  Grundriss:  but  that,  even  in 
English  translation,  is  too  difficult  for  the  average  under- 
graduate. We  sorely  need  a  clear  discussion,  historical 
and  critical,  at  the  text-book  level.  — 

I  do  not  think  that  my  statements  with  regard  to  atten- 
tion are  too  strong,  even  in  the  light  of  what  I  said  in 
Lecture  I.  of  the  threefold  root  of  the  psychological  system. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  doctrine  of  attention  is  of  funda- 
mental importance.  And  I  believe  that  the  strength  of 
Wundt's  system  lies  —  and  will  lie,  historically  —  in  the 
fact  of  its  being  an  attentional  system,  whether  its  special 
teaching  is  right  or  wrong.  A  system  which  makes  little 
of  attention  is,  in  my  judgment,  foredoomed  to  failure. 

I  do  not  think,  either,  that  I  have  entered  too  strong  a 
claim  for  the  modernity  of  the  psychology  of  attention. 
Braunschweiger  makes  a  great  deal  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury doctrine  {Die  Lehre  von  der  Aufmerhsamkeit  in  der 
Psijchologie  des  18.  Jahrhunderts,  1899,  2  f.,  38,  69,  95  f., 
124,  150  ff.).  But  he  is  a  special  student  within  a  special 
period,  and  the  judgment  of  the  special  student  is  likely 
to  lack  perspective.  A  more  impartial  witness  is  M.  Des- 
soir  {Geschichte  der  neueren  deutsclien  Psycliologiey  i.,  1897- 
1902),  and  a  cursory  glance  through  Dessoir's  index  will 
show  the  approximate  place  that  attention  held  in  eigh- 
teenth century  systems. 

No  doubt,  the  older  psychologists  were  acute  observers. 
Let  me  give  an  instance.  I  was  looking  up  my  Light  of 
Nature,  to  verify  the  reference  given  in  Note  20  of  the 
following  Lecture,  —  and  I  naturally  read  on,  for  a  few 


354  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

pages,  as  one  is  apt  to  do.  I  came  upon  the  following: 
"  It  has  been  generally  remarked  by  schoolboys,  that  after 
having  laboured  the  whole  evening  before  a  repetition  day 
to  get  their  lesson  by  heart,  but  to  very  little  purpose,  when 
they  rise  in  the  morning,  they  shall  have  it  current  at  their 
tongue's  end  without  any  further  trouble  "  (i.,  1805,  248  f.). 
Here  is  a  direct  anticipation  of  the  modern  psychophysics 
of  association  !  And  a  few  pages  further :  "  in  a  language 
we  are  masters  of  what  we  read  seems  wholly  to  occupy 
the  imagination,  yet,  for  all  that,  the  mind  can  find  room 
for  something  of  her  own :  how  quick  soever  the  eye  may 
pass  along,  the  thought  flies  still  quicker,  and  will  make 
little  excursions  between  one  word  and  the  next,  or  pur- 
sue reflections  of  its  own,  at  the  same  time  it  attends  to 
the  reading"  {ibid.,  253), — the  very  illustration  that  I 
had  myself  chosen  for  my  discussion  of  introspection  !  — 
It  will  hardly  be  argued,  now,  that  Tucker  can  compare, 
as  a  student  of  association  and  memory,  with  Ebbinghaus 
and  Miiller:  and  what  holds  here  holds,  so  far  as  my 
reading  has  extended,  of  attention  as  well.  Everything 
depends  upon  the  context,  upon  the  way  the  problem  is 
seen,  upon  the  suggestion  of  method,  upon  the  fruitfulness 
of  the  idea  for  scientific  purposes. 

^^  Grundziigey  i.,  1905,  611.  So  also  Klilpe,  Outlines, 
1895,  423. 

^^  I.  Kant,  Metaphysische  Anfangsgrilnde  der  Naturwis- 
senschaft,  1786,  x.  f . ;  Sdmmtliche  Werke,  ed.  Rosenkranz 
and  Schubert,  v.,  1838-1842,  310.  Cf.  my  Exper.  Psychol., 
IL,  ii.,  1905,  cxlv. 

"  L.  M.  Solomons  and  G.  Stein,  Normal  Motor  Autom- 
atism, Psychol.  Review,  iii.,  1896,  esp.  503  ff. 

^*  The  preceding  paragraphs  are  taken,  with  some  com- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V  355 

pression,  from  the  forthcoming  edition  of  my  Outline  of 
Psychology.  The  position  agrees,  in  the  main,  with  that 
of  W.  B.  Pillsbury,  A  Suggestion  toward  a  Reinterpreta- 
tion  of  Introspection,  Journ.  Philos.  Psychol.  Sci.  Meth.y 
i.,  1904,  225  ff.  See  also  KUlpe,  Outlines,  1895,  8  ff.; 
Ebbinghaus,  Grmidzilge,  i.,  1905,  QQ  ff. ;  Wundt,  Physiol. 
Psychol,  i.,  1902,  4  ff.  (Engl.  1904,  4  ff.),  or  i.,  1908, 
4  if.,  23  ff.,  with  references  there  given. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  essential  similarity  of  the 
methods  of  psychology  and  the  natural  sciences  does  not 
necessa^-ily  carry  with  it  a  corresponding  similarity  of 
subject-matter  and  problem. 

^^  Kiilpe,  The  Problem  of  Attention,  The  Monist,  xiii., 
1902,  42. 

^®  Cf.  the  remarks  in  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xvi.,  1905, 
218  f. 

^'  Physiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  341 ;   1874,  717  f. 

^^  Vattention,  1906,  2. ;  Attention,  1908,  2. 

^^  Diet  of  Philos.  and  Psychol,  i.,  1901,  86. 

2^  T.  Ribot,  Psychologic  de  Vattention,  1889,  6,  9,  36,  95. 

2*  G.  T.  Ladd,  Psychol,  Descr.  and  Explan.,  1894,  61,  66. 

^'Stumpf,  Tonpsychol,  ii.,  1890,  276  S.;  cf.  i.,  1883, 
67  ff. 

2'  G.  F.  Stout,  A  Manual  of  Psychology,  1899,  65  f. 
Cf.  Analytic  Psychology,  l,  1896,  125  ff.,  180  ff. 

^*  J.  M.  Baldwin,  Handbook  of  Psychol:  Senses  and 
Intellect,  1890,  69  ff.  Cf.  Feeling  and  Will,  1891,  280  ff., 
351  ff . ;  Mental  Devel  in  the  Child  and  the  Race:  Methods 
and  Processes,  1906,  428  ff. 

^^  F.  H.  Bradley,  Is  there  any  Special  Activity  of  Atten- 
tion? Mind,  O.  S.,  xi.,  1886,  306. 

2®D.  Ferrier,  The  Functions  of  the  Brain,  1886,  463. 


356  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

"  Grundzuge,  I,  1905,  600,  612. 

^*  J.  R.  Angell,  Psychology:  an  Introductory  Study  of  the 
Structure  and  Function  of  Human  Consciousness,  1904,  65. 

^^  C.  H.  Judd,  Psychology:  General  Introduction^  1907, 
191,  193. 

^""Exper,  Pddagogik,  i.,  1907,  78  f. 

31  Cf.  C.  S.  Squire,  A  Genetic  Study  of  Rhythm,  Amer. 
Journ.  Psychol.,  xii.,  1901,  541  f. 

3^  On  intensity  of  stimulus,  see  Klilpe,  Outlines,  1895, 
438;  A.  Pilzecker,  Die  Lehre  von  der  sinnlichen  Auf- 
merksamkeit,  1889,  19;  Ebbinghaus,  GrundzUge,  I,  1905, 
602;  James,  Princ.  of  Psychol.,  l,  1890,  416  f . ;  Pillsbury, 
Fatteniion,  1906,  38  ff. ;  Attention,  1908,  28  ff. ;  Wundt, 
Physiol.  Psijchol,  iii.,  1903,  336;  G.  E.  Muller,  Zur 
Theorie  der  sinnlichen  Aufmerksamkeit,  [1873]  110  ff. 
Muller  refers  to  duration  only  as  a  condition  of  Abstump- 
fang  of  the  attention :  126  ff. 

33  See  James,  Princ.  of  Psychol.,  I,  1890,  417;  ii., 
383  ff.  G.  E.  Muller,  Zur  Psychophysik  der  Gesichts- 
empfindungen,  Zeits.,  x.,  1896,  27  f.  Muller  describes 
Eindringlichkeit  as  follows :  "  die  Eindringlichkeit  betrifft 
die  mehr  psychologische  Seite  der  Empfindungen,  sie 
scheint  sich  hauptsachlich  nach  der  Macht  zu  bestimmen, 
mit  welcher  die  Sinneseindrlicke  unsere  Aufmerksamkeit 
auf  sich  Ziehen,  und  konnte  daher  in  sachlicher  Hinsicht 
nicht  unpassend  auch  als  die  Aufdringlichkeit  der  Sinnes- 
eindrlicke bezeichnet  werden.  .  .  .  [Sie]  ist,  wie  es 
scheint,  nicht  bloss  von  der  Intensitat  des  psychophysis- 
chen  Prozesses  abhangig,  sondern  bestimmt  sich  zugleich 
auch  nach  der  Haufigkeit  der  betreffenden  Empfindung 
in  unserer  Erfahrung,  nach  dem  Gefuhlswerte  derselben 
und  nach  anderen  derartigen  fur  die  Erweckung  unserer 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  V  357 

Aufmerksamkeit  wichtigen  Faktoren."  Ibid.,  26  f.  Fre- 
quency is  mentioned  incidentally  by  Mliller,  in  the  Sinn- 
liche  Aufmerksamkeit y  135,  as  a  condition  of  involuntary 
attention.  —  Ebbinghaus,  Grundzilge,  i.,  1905,  602  f. 

^^Pillsbury,  Vattention,  1906,  39  f . ;  Attention,  1908, 
29  f.;  Ebbinghaus,  Grundzilge,  i.,  1905,  603  ff.  The 
criticism  of  the  text  applies  also  to  Ebbinghaus'  treatment 
of  expert  disregard  of  irrelevant  details  (604  f.)  and  of 
habituation  (712  ff.),  in  so  far  as  these  are  made  to  depend 
upon  mere  repetition  of  stimulus.  —  Wundt,  Physiol. 
Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  340. 

In  Lecture  VIII.  I  express  my  personal  opinion  that 
habit  always  implies  foregone  attention. 

^^  Mliller,  Sinnliche  Aufmerksamkeit,  [1873]  125  f . ; 
Pilzecker,  Sinnliche  Atfmerksamkeit,  1889,  20;  Pillsbury, 
U attention,  1906,  40;  Attention,  1908,  30;  James,  Princ. 
of  Psychol.,  \.,  1890,  416  f . ;  L.  W.  Stern,  Psychologie  der 
Verdnderungsauffassung,  1898,  211  ff. 

^^  Mliller,  op.  cit.,  135;  Pilzecker,  op.  cit.,  20;  Klilpe, 
Outlines,  1895,  300  f . ;  Stumpf,  TonpsijchoL,  ii.,  1890, 
337  ff .  (with  refs.  to  S.  Exner) ;  T.  Heller,  Philos.  Studien, 
xi.,  1895,  249;  Stern,  Verdnderungsauffassung,  1898,  143, 
181  ff.,  201;  James,  Princ.  of  Psychol,  i.,  1890,  417; 
ii.,  173  f. ;  Pillsbury,  op.  cit,  62  ff.  (Engl.,  48  f.). 

^^  Miiller,  op.  cit.,  135;  Kiilpe,  oj).  cit.,  438;  James, 
op.  cit.,  i.,  417;  Ebbinghaus,  op.  cit.,  715;  Pillsbury,  op. 
cit,  42,  64  f.  (Engl.,  31  f.,  49) ;  Wundt,  Physiol  Psy- 
chol, 336.  Cf.  the  passage  in  T.  Lipps,  Suggestion  und 
Hypnose,  Sitzungsher.  der  philos. -philol  u.  der  histor. 
Classe  der  k.  bayer.  Akad.  d.  Wiss.,  ii.,  1897,  424:  "der 
Reiz  des  Neuen  und  Ungewohnten  ist  nichts  anderes 
als  der  Reiz  d.   h.   die  Fahigkeit  der  Inanspruchnahme 


358  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V 

und  der  Festhaltung  psychischer  Kraft,  die  einem  Vor- 
stellungsinhalte  oder  Komplex  von  solchen  zukommt, 
ehe  diese  Fiihigkeit  durch  die  auf  Erfahrungsassocia- 
tionen  beruhende  Tendenz  der  Ausgleichung  und  des 
Abflusses  sicli  vermindert  hat.  Der  Reiz  des  Neuen 
ist  nichts  als  der  unverminderte  Reiz  des  Objektes." 
At  bottom,  this  doctrine  agrees  with  that  of  Muller;  the 
stimulus  of  novelty  is  the  stimulus  of  the  object  as  such, 
the  claim  that  it  has  to  attention  in  virtue  of  its  inten- 
sity, quality,  duration,  etc.  While,  however,  I  accept 
Lipps'  analysis,  I  still  think  that  novelty  has  a  special 
place  in  our  empirical  classification. 

''  Muller,  op.  cit,  40  ff.,  123  ff. ;  Pilzecker,  op.  cit.,  19, 
34  ff. ;  Pillsbury,  op.  cit,  44  ff.  (Engl.,  32  ff.) ;  Kulpe,  Out- 
lineSy  439  f. ;  Monist,  xiii.,  1902,  46  ff. ;  Ebbinghaus,  op. 
cit,  603,  605  f.;  Stumpf,  TonpsychoL,  ii.,  1890,  339;  H. 
Helmholtz,  Physiol.  Optik,  1896,  890  f. ;  Popular  Lectures 
cm  Scientific  Subjects,  [First  Series]  1885,  294  f. ;  On  the 
Sensations  of  Tone  as  a  Physiological  Basis  for  the  Theory 
of  Music,  1895,  50  f . ;  J.  Jastrow,  Fact  and  Fable  in 
Psychol.,  1900,  89;  James,  op.  cit.,  i.,  437  f.  Relevant 
observations  are  reported  by  B.  B.  Breese :  On  Lnhibition, 
1899,  18  ff.;  W.  McDougall,  Mind,  N.  S.,  xii.,  1903, 
473  ff.;  A.  Bruckner,  Zeits.f  Psijchol,  xxvi.,  1901,  45,  53. 

^^Wundt,  Physiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  336;  Kulpe, 
Outlines,  1895,  437  f . ;   Monist,  xiii.,  1902,  44. 

^•'Muller,  op.  cit.,  132  ff. ;  Ebbinghaus,  op.  cit.,  622, 
714;  Fechner,  Elemente  d.  Psychophysik,  ii.,  1889,  446; 
J.  Delboeuf,  Examen  critique  de  la  loi  psychophysique,  sa 
base  et  sa  signification,  1883,  166;  Lehmann,  Haupt- 
gesetze,  1892,  194  ff . ;  Pillsbury,  op.  cit.,  38  f.  (Engl.,  29); 
MUnsterberg,  Grundziige,  I,  1900,  228  f. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  V  359 

"  This  paragraph  follows  Muller,  Sinnl.  Aufmerksam- 
keit,  110  ff. 

''Lotze,  Med.  Psychol,  1852,  507  ff . ;  Wundt,  Physiol 
Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  336  ff . ;  Kulpe,  Outlines,  436  ff . ; 
Monist,  xiii.,  1902,  46  ff. ;  Pillsbury,  op.  ciL,  35  ff.  (Engl., 
26  ff.) ;  James,  Princ.  of  Psychol,  I,  1890,  434  ff. ;  J.  von 
Kv'iQs,  Zeits.  f.  Psychol,  vili.,  1895,  12  ff. 

Whence  Lotze  derived  his  list  it  would  be  difficult  to 
say.  The  topic  was  a  favourite  one  with  the  eighteenth 
century  psychologists:  see  Braunschweiger,  Die  Lehre 
von  der  Aufmerksamkeit,  etc.,  1899,  50  ff. ;  Dessoir, 
Geschichte,  I,  1902,  418.  In  i.,  1894,  238,  Dessoir  ex- 
claims, apropos  of  E.  Platner  (1744-1818):  "ware  es 
nicht  vielleicht  besser  gewesen,  Platner  hatte  uns  gesagt, 
wodurch  die  Aufmerksamkeit  nicht  gereizt  wird  ?  "  — 

In  Die  Lehre  von  der  Aufmerksamkeit,  1907,  E.  Diirr 
takes  a  view  of  attention  (11  f.)  which  is  practically  the 
same  as  my  own ;  he  also  reaches  a  like  conclusion  upon 
various  special  problems,  though  in  certain  cases  (e.g.,  on 
the  subject  of  fluctuation,  131  ff.)  his  position  is  different. 
Diirr,  however,  is  writing  of  attention  "mit  besonderer 
Beriicksichtigung  padagogischer  Interessen"  (4),  so  that 
the  course  and  contents  of  his  exposition  are  widely  diver- 
gent from  those  of  the  present  Lectures. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VI 

^Kulpe,  Outlines,  1895,  336  f.,  379. 

2  Wundt,  Phijsiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  339. 

^  Pillsbury,  V attention,  1906,  3  ff. ;  Attention,  1908,  2  if. 

'Kulpe,  oj).  cit.,  429,  441  f. 

MVundt,  op.  cit.,  339  f. 

®  Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige,  I,  1905,  612  ff. 

'Stumpf,  Tonpsychologie,  l,  1883,  72,  374;  ii.,  1890, 
293. 

*  H.  Mlinsterberg,  Grundziige  der  Psychologie,  i.,  1900, 
227.  —  The  mention  of  the  lengthened  Hne  may,  at  first 
sight,  appear  gratuitous.  The  reference  is,  however,  to 
experiments  upon  "the  distances  between  visible  points, 
the  distances  serving  as  measures  for  the  intensity  of  the 
sensations  produced  by  the  movement  of  the  eyes."  See 
Psych.  Rev.,  \.,  1894,  39;  and  cf.  Amer.  Journ.  Psych., 
viii.,  1896,  50,  53. 

^  See  Stumpf,  op.  cit.,  ii.,  293  f.  Stumpf  does  not  specify 
the  instrument :  he  speaks  only  of  a '  Zungenpfeifenaccord.' 

It  is,  perhaps,  worth  while  to  add  that,  even  when  direct 
observations  agree,  their  interpretation  may  be  extremely 
difficult.  Thus,  Krueger  writes  of  Stumpf's  Reinheits- 
gefuhl:  "sicherlich  ist  die  Theorie  ausgegangen  von 
wichtigen  und  genau  festgestellten  Tatsachen.  Hoch- 
musikalische  Beobachter  haben  mit  uberraschender  Fein- 
heit  und  Konstanz  kleine  Verstimmungen  der  ihnen 
gelaufigsten  konsonanten  Tonschritte  als  scharf,  spannend, 
uberreizt,    beziehungsweise    (die    subjektiv    verkleinerten 

360 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI  361 

Intervalle)  als  matt,  schal,  stumpf  bezeichnet.  Dass  es 
sich  dabei,  wie  weit  und  in  welchem  Sinne,  um  Gefiihle 
handle,  ist  naturlich  nicht  mehr  zweifellos."  —  Psychol. 
Studien,  i.,  1906,  381. 

^°  See,  e.g.,  H.  MUnsterberg  and  N.  Kozaki,  The  In- 
tensifying Effect  of  Attention,  Psychol.  Review,  i.,  1894, 
39  ff. ;  A.  J.  HamHn,  Attention  and  Distraction,  Amer. 
Journ.  Psychol.,  viii.,  1896,  3  ff. ;  O.  Kulpe,  Ueber  den 
Einfluss  der  Aufmerksamkeit  auf  die  Empfindungsin- 
tensitat,  ///.  Internat.  Congress/.  Psychol.,  1897,  180  ff . ; 
M.  Tsukahara,  Problem  of  the  Relation  of  Intensity  of 
Sensation  to  Attention,  1907.  —  Cf.,  further,  G,  E.  Miiller, 
Zur  Theorie  d.  sinnlichen  Aufmerksamkeit,  [1873]  2  ff. ; 
Fechner,  Elemente  d.  Psychophysik,  ii.,  1889,  452  f . ;  Re- 
vision, 1882,  271 ;  T.  Lipps,  Suggestion  u.  Hypnose,  1898, 
398  ff. ;  A.  Lehmann,  Die  Hypnose,  1890,  22 ;  J.  Geyser, 
Ueber  den  Einfluss  der  Aufmerksamkeit  auf  die  Intensitat 
der  Empfindung,  1897. 

"  Reported  briefly  in  Psychol.  Bulletin,  iv.,  1907,  212  f. 
Professor  Bentley  allows  me  to  quote  here  the  full  text 
of  his  paper. 

"I  have  to  report,  at  this  time,  only  a  single  group  of 
experiments,  which  deal  with  the  intensity  of  noise;  and 
I  shall  reserve  for  some  future  occasion  a  full  discussion 
and  interpretation  of  the  results. 

"  Both  my  apparatus  and  my  method  are  familiar.  The 
Leipsic  type  of  gravity  phonometer  was  used,  and  the 
sound  stimuli  were  given  in  pairs.  To  the  one  stimulus 
the  observer  was  attentive;  from  the  other  he  was  dis- 
tracted. The  distraction  was  made  effective  both  by  the 
brevity  of  the  sound  and  by  the  character  of  the  distracting 
stimuli   (odours).     The  success  or  failure  of  distraction 


362  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

was  always  checked  (as  were  also  the  state  and  degree  of 
attention  and  the  conscious  filling  of  the  silent  interval) 
by  introspective  control.  Care  was  taken  to  eliminate 
constant  and  variable  errors;  and  especially  to  keep 
the  physical  and  organic  conditions  as  unvarying  as  pos- 
sible. 

"  The  pairs  of  stimuli  were  given  usually  in  series  of  ten, 
each  pair  occupying  13  sec,  with  an  interv^al  for  rest 
between  successive  pairs.  An  equal  number  of  Distrac- 
tion-Attention (D-A)  and  Attention-Distraction  (A-D) 
pairs  were  introduced  in  haphazard  order  in  every  series. 
The  difference  in  height  of  fall  Avithin  each  pair  was 
(with  one  exception  noted  below)  5  cm.,  and  the  absolute 
heights  varied  between  24.4  and  89.6  cm. 

"Table  I.  gives  the  results  for  Set  I.  (100  pairs  for  each 
one  of  three  observers)  and  Set  II.  (120  pairs  for  each 
observer).  Set  I.  covers  all  intensities  between  24.4  and 
79.4  cm.,  while  Set  II.  contains  only  two  pairs  of  stimulus 
intensity,  24.4-29.4  and  74.4-79.4  cm.  As  a  check  upon 
these  observations,  a  group  of  'attention'  experiments  was 
added  to  Set  II.,  where  both  sensations  were  received  in 
maximal  attention  (A- A  order). 

"As  regards  arrangement  in  the  Tables,  note  the  fol- 
lowing points.  The  first  horizontal  line  of  figures  con- 
tains the  number  of  correct  or '  true '  judgments ;  the  second 
line,  the  times  that  the '  attention '  stimulus  (Rq)  was  over- 
estimated, i.e.  judged  too  great ;  the  third  line,  the  under- 
estimations  of  the  'attention'  stimulus;  and  the  fourth 
line,  the  cases  thrown  out  on  the  basis  of  introspection 
(failure  to  attend  or  to  distract).  In  the  lower  half  of  the 
Table,  at  the  right,  are  given  the  A- A  series,  which  are 
self-explanatory. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VI 


363 


No.  OF  Set 


"TABLE   I 

(10    A-D    AND 

10  D-A  Series) 


II.  (8  A-D,  8  D-A  AND 
4  A-A  Series) 


Height  of  Fall 

24.i-79.4  cm. 

24.4-29.4  cm. 

74.4-79.4  cm. 



>-3 

_ 

^^ 

Observee 

B     G    M 

o 

B 

G 

M 

B 

G 

M 

1 

True 

35    U    40 

109 

17 

22 

23 

62 

13 

17 

13 

43 

105 

-d 

Ra  over- 

est'd 

52  42  42 

136 

11 

11 

12 

34 

19 

17 

13 

49 

83 

s§ 

Ra    under- 

91^ 

est'd 

7    15    18 

40 

7 

4 

3 

14 

8 

6 

9 

23 

37 

Thrown 

< 

out 

6      9      0 

15 

5 

3 

2 

10 

0 

0 

5 

5 

15 

Total 

100  100  100 

300 

40 

40 

40 

120 

40 

40 

40 

120 

240 

Right 

X  2 

12 

28 

24 

64 

14 

12 

12 

38 

102 

a 

Wrong 

•^ 

X  2 

22 

12 

16 

50 

24 

28 

26 

78 

128 

0? 

Doubtful 

< 

X  2 
Total 

6 

0 

0 

6 

2 

0 

2 

4 

10 

X  2 
X   . 

40 

40 

40 

120 

40 

40 

40 

120 

240 

"It  is  to  be  observed  that,  in  nearly  half  (136)  of  the 
300  experiments  of  Set  I.,  the  sound  attended  to  is,  for  a 
wide  range  of  intensities,  overestimated.  The  number  is 
somewhat  greater  than  the  number  of  'true'  cases  (109) 
and  is  about  three  and  one  half  times  as  great  as  the  num- 
ber of  underestimated  cases  (40).  Thus  far,  the  results 
indicate,  then,  that  a  noise  attended  to  is  sensibly  louder 
than  the  same  objective  sound  received  in  distraction. 

"But  the  problem  demands  more  specific  treatment. 
It  demands,  in  the  first  place,  the  distribution  of  over- 
estimated cases  throughout  the  scale  of  intensity.  Set  I. 
furnishes  too  few  judgments  at  any  single  intensity  to 
meet  this  demand.     But  Set  II.  contains  results  from  a 


364 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VI 


single  weak  (24.4-29.4  cm.)  and  a  single  intensive  pair 
(74.4-79.4  cm.).  A  comparison  of  the  two  pairs  shows 
that  the  number  of  overestimated  cases  is  uniformly  in- 
creased, for  all  observers,  with  increase  in  physical  in- 
tensity. That  this  relation  does  not  obtain  with  weak 
and  strong  stimuli  whose  differences  are  relatively  (not 
absolutely)  the  same,  is  shown  by  Table  II. 

"TABLE   II 
No.  OF  Set       III  and  IV.*  (14  A-D,  14  D-A,  and  8  A-A  Series) 


Height  of  Fall 

24.4-29.4  cm. 

74.4-79.4  cm. 

Observer 

B       G      M 

Total 

B       G      M 

Total 

Total 

1§ 
ll 

< 

True 

Ra  overestimated      . 

Ra  underestimated   . 

Thrown  out .... 

Total 

30      31      37 
37      25     18 

0        7      13 

3        7        2 

70      70      70 

98 
80 
2(J 
12 
210 

29      38      41 
33     26     19 

4        4        7 

4        2        3 

70      70      70 

108 

78 

15 

9 

210 

206 

158 

35 

21 

420 

1 

< 

Eight         X  2   .    .    . 

Wrong      X  2    .    .    . 

Doubtful  X  2   .    .    . 

Total     X  2   .    .    . 

32      35      41 

30      32      27 

8        3        2 

70      70      70 

108 
89 
13 

210 

27      52      36 
33      18      34 
10        0        0 
70      70      70 

115 

85 

10 

210 

223 

174 

23 

420 

"Table  II.  presents  results  from  two  pairs  of  stimulus 
intensities  which  may  be  supposed  to  measure  (under 
Weber's  Law)  like  sense-distances.  Under  the  given  con- 
ditions, the  overestimations  for  weak  and  loud  sounds  are 
found  to  be  almost  identical  (80  and  78) ;  or,  viewed  from 
the  negative  side,  distraction  may  be  said  to  weaken,  by 
a  like  amount,  loud  and  weak  auditory  sensations. 

"A  comparison  of  the  upper  and  lower  halves  of  the 
Tables  reveals  the  curious  fact  that  the  number  of  'true' 

*  In  Set  IV.  (4  distraction  and  2  attention  series),  the  position 
of  O's  head  was  controlled  by  means  of  a  biting  board.  The  re- 
sults were  consistent  with  those  of  Set  III. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI  365 

cases  with  distraction  is  almost  as  great  as  the  number  of 
'right'  cases  with  continuous  attention  (A-A  series), — 
namely,  206  and  223.  It  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  as 
if  the  large  constant  error  introduced  by  distraction  must 
have  materially  damaged  the  function  of  judgment.  But 
a  moment's  reflection  will  make  it  plain  that  this  error 
would  tend  as  often  toward  the  increase  as  toward  the 
decrease  of  the  difference  between  sensations.  Its  effect 
appears,  therefore,  rather  in  the  distribution  (to  under- 
estimations  and  overestimations)  than  in  the  number  of 
incorrect  judgments.  The  small  difference  in  number 
obtained  (17)  is  probably  due  to  the  more  unfavourable 
conditions  for  judgment  afforded  by  distraction  from  the 
one  of  the  sounds  compared.  — 

"It  is  plainly  impracticable,  at  the  present  state  of  the 
problem,  to  attempt  an  explanation  or  even  a  full  inter- 
pretation of  the  bare  results.  Granted  that  distraction 
lowers  the  intensity  of  certain  sensations,  we  have  still  to 
ask  what  factor  in  the  distracted  consciousness  is  responsi- 
ble for  the  effect.  Is  loss  of  intensity  due  to  loss  of  clear- 
ness ?  or  to  the  affective  colouring  of  the  distracting 
odours  ?  or  to  the  impairment  of  memory  through  dis- 
traction ?  or,  finally,  are  the  conditions  purely  physio- 
logical, i.e.  without  conscious  representation  ?  We  shall 
hope,  by  further  work,  to  find  satisfactory  answers  to  these 
questions.  At  present  we  can  make  only  preliminary 
observations.  (1)  Whatever  relation  obtains  between 
clearness  and  intensity,  the  two  things  were  distinct  in 
the  minds  of  the  observers.  Not  only  were  the  latter 
familiar  with  the  difference  between  strength  and  clear- 
ness; they  were  also  warned,  during  the  experiments, 
against  confusion  of  the  terms.     (2)  As  regards  the  pos- 


366  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

sible  influence  of  feeling,  it  may  be  noted  that  striking 
individual  differences  in  depth  and  range  of  feeling  did 
not,  in  our  three  observers,  seem  to  run  parallel  with  the 
overestimations  in  question.  Finally,  (3)  against  the  in- 
direct effect  of  memory  upon  intensity,  we  may  bring  the 
fact  that  overestimation  through  attention  w^as  independent 
of  the  interval  separating  the  '  attention '  and  the  '  distrac- 
tion' stimuli.  It  obtained  whatever  the  order:  whether 
distraction  came  before  or  after  the  interval,  and  therefore 
whether  judgment  followed  upon  the  heels  of  the  dis- 
traction or  only  after  the  interpolation  of  another,  attentive 
consciousness.  — 

"In  conclusion:  certain  strong  and  weak  sounds  suffer 
an  intensive  reduction  under  distraction.  Whether  this 
reduction  represents  a  general  dependency  of  intensity 
upon  attention,  and  whether  the  reduction  rests  upon 
physiological  or  psychophysical  grounds,  remain  questions 
which  demand  further  investigation." 

This  reference  to  the  *  intensifying  effect  of  attention' 
naturally  brought  out  instances  and  opinions  of  a  contrary 
tenor.  So  far  as  I  see  at  present,  the  cases  of  the  'weak- 
ening' of  an  impression  by  direction  of  the  attention  upon 
it  may  be  classified  under  the  following  heads. 

(1)  We  prepare  for  the  reception  of  a  very  intensive 
stimulus  by  protective  adjustment  of  the  sense-organ  and 
by  inhibition  of  the  start  of  surprise.  Cf.  Mliller  in 
Pilzecker,  Sinnliche  Aufmerhsamkeit,  1889,  80  f. 

(2)  Foregone  accommodation  of  attention,  sensory  and 
motor  Euistellung,  may  give  a  like  result.  If  we  are 
habituated  to  very  heavy  weights,  a  moderately  intensive 
weight  will  seem  light.  —  Cf.  G.  E.  Mliller  and  F.  Schu- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI  367 

mann,  Pfliiger's  Archiv,  xlv.,  1889,  42  ff. ;  and  references 
in  my  Exj>er.  Psychol,  II.,  ii.,  1905,  366. 

(3)  Expectation  may  be  'worse  than  the  reality.'  The 
expected  impression  may  be  weakened  (a)  by  the  fatigue 
that  follows  from  the  strain  of  expectation  itself,  or  (6)  by 
the  conscious  Einstellung,  by  expectation's  overshooting 
its  mark  and  predisposing  us  for  something  more  intensive 
than  we  actually  experience. 

(4)  Intensity  may  be  affected  in  two  ways  by  the  con- 
currence of  other  stimuli,  (a)  An  associated  whole  may 
be  stronger  than  any  one  of  its  constituents.  Thus  the 
pain  of  a  dental  operation  is  enhanced  by  the  odour  of 
the  room,  the  sight  of  instruments,  the  uncomfortable  posi- 
tion of  the  jaws  and  lips,  etc.,  etc. :  a  resolute  fixation  of 
attention  on  the  pain  itself  will  sometimes  reveal  a  sur- 
prisingly low  degree  of  intensity.  Cf.  Kiilpe,  Outlines^ 
398.  No  doubt,  a  part  is  here  played  by  (3)  (h).  — 
(6)  A  sensation  may  be  weakened  by  its  fusion  with  other 
sensations;  thus  an  overtone,  singled  out  by  anticipatory 
attention,  may  appear  surprisingly  weak.  Cf.  Muller, 
Sinnliche  Aufmerksamkeit,  [1873]  21,  38  f.,  71  ff. ;  Stumpf, 
TonpsychoL,  ii.,  1890,  231. 

(5)  A  simple  case  is  that  of  the  weakening  of  a  sensation 
by  peripheral  adaptation.  The  most  sustained  attention 
cannot  prevent  adaptation;  and,  if  sustained  attention  is 
there,  the  adaptive  weakening  may  appear,  at  first  sight, 
to  be  the  direct  result  of  attention  itself.  —  Where  the 
stimulus  is  too  strong  for  noticeable  adaptation,  or  where 
the  phenomenon  of  adaptation  is  absent,  sustained  atten- 
tion may,  I  think,  result  in  a  sort  of  hypnotic  anaesthesia ; 
but  I  am  not  sure  upon  this  point. 

^2  J.  M.  Baldwin,  Senses  and  Intellect,  1890,  63  ff.,  68. 


368  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI 

''  J.  R.  Angell,  Psychology,  1904,  65  f. 
-    ^'Monist,  xiii.,  1902,  38  f.,  57. 

^^Zeits.f.  Phil.  u.  philos.  Kritik,  ex.,  1896,  31  f.,  35. 
Cf.  H.  E.  Kohn,  Zur  Theorie  der  AufmerksamkeiU  1894; 
F.  Schumann,  Zeits.,  xxiii.,  1900,  24. 

^®  Art.  Psychology,  Encyc.  Britan.,  xx.,  1886,  47. 

^^Fechner,  Elem.  d.  Psychophysik,  ii.,  1889,  39.  Cf. 
my  Exper.  Psychol.,  II.,  ii.,  1905,  clxiii. 

^*  H.  R.  Marshall,  Instinct  and  Reason,  1898,  38  f. 

^^  H.  Helmholtz,  Zur  Lehre  von  den  Tonempjindungen, 
1877,  107;    Sensations  of  Tone,  1895,  62. 

^"K.  Fortlage,  System  der  Psychologie,  i.,  1855,  102  ff . ; 
Lotze,  Med.  Psychol,  1852,  505;  A.  Tucker,  The  Light 
of  Nature  Pursued,  2d  ed.,  i.,  1805,  225.  I  have  not 
found  the  metaphor,  as  I  had  expected  to  do,  in  I.  H. 
Fichte's  Psychologie,  though  the  author  indicates  his 
famiharity  with  it  in  i.,  1864,  161. 

'MVundt,  Physiol.  Psychol,  1874,  717;  iii.,  1903,  33  f. 
The  change  was  made  in  the  fourth  edition  of  1893. 

^^Ihid.,  iii.,  1903,  117  if.,  552,  557. 

^'  W.  Hamilton,  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  i.,  1859,  352  f. ; 
Wundt,  ibid.,  554  ff.  with  references. 

""^Ihid.,  595  f.,  600  f. 

^^  C.  L.  Morgan,  Introd.  to  Comparative  Psychol ,  1894, 
14,  19. 

^""Princ.  of  Psychol,  i.,  1890,  224  ff. 

"  Op.  cit,  13  f. 

^'Op.  cil,  119. 

^^  G.  Dietze,  Untersuchungen  liber  den  Umfang  des 
Bewusstseins  bei  regelmassig  auf  einander  folgenden 
Schalleindrucken,  Philos.  Studien,  ii.,  1885,  362  ff. ; 
Wundt,  op.  cit.,  351,  353. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VI  369 

'« Dietze,  op.  ciL,  391. 

^'  Op.  ciL,  353,  356. 

^^F.  Schumann,  Zeits.y  i.,  1890,  77  f.,  80;  ii.,  1891, 
115  ff.;  xvii.,  1898,  121;  Wundt,  Philos.  Studien,  vi., 
1891,  250  ff. ;  vii.,  1892,  222  ff. ;  W.  Wirth,  ibid.,  xx.,  1902, 
561  ff.;  J.  Quandt,  Psychol.  Studien,  i.,  1906,  137  ff. 
Kiilpe  leaves  the  introspective  question  open:  Outlines y 
394.  Miinsterberg  seems  to  accept  Wundt's  view,  since 
he  identifies  the  question  of  the  range  of  consciousness 
with  the  question  "wieviel  Schallnachbilder  bei  regel- 
massig  succedierenden  Schalleindriicken  gleichzeiting  in 
unserem  Bewusstsein  bleiben":  Grundzilge,  i.,  1900,  214. 
—  Cf .  also  the  discussion  of  the  Psychische  Prasenzzeit 
by  L.  W.  Stern,  Zeits.,  xiii.,  1897,  325  ff.,  and  the  refer- 
ences there  given. 

'^  Wundt,  Physiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  353.  These  are 
the  observations  which  I  believe  Wundt  has  in  mind 
ibid.,  119. 

^*  On  cognition,  see  Wundt,  ibid.,  535  ff.  This  explana- 
tion, which  I  have  given  in  lectures  since  1904,  is  also 
offered  by  K.  Mittenzwey,  Psychol.  Studien,  ii.,  1907,  386. 

^^  See  W.  Wirth,  Die  Klarheitsgrade  der  Regionen  des 
Sehfeldes  bei  verschiedenen  Verteilungen  der  Aufmerk- 
samkeit,  Psychol.  Studien,  ii.,  1906,  30  ff. ;  K.  Mittenzwey, 
Ueber  abstrahierende  Apperzeption,  ibid.,  1907,  358  ff . ; 
A.  Kastner  and  W.  Wirth,  Die  Bestimmung  der  Auf- 
merksamkeitsverteilung  innerhalb  des  Sehfeldes  mit  Hilfe 
von  Reaktionsversuchen,  ibid.,  iii.,  1907,  361  ff. 

^«  Angell,  Psychology,  1904,  65. 

"James,  Princ.  of  Psychol,  i.,  1890,  237  ff.,  284  ff.; 
esp.  255,  258  f.  In  his  last  section  James  is  dealing  with 
clearness  and   obscurity.     "We  actually  ignore  most  of 


370  NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VI 

the  things  about  us."  "Attention,  .  .  .  out  of  all  the 
sensations  yielded,  picks  out  certain  ones  as  worthy  of  its 
notice  and  suppresses  all  the  rest."  Here,  however,  is  no 
mention  of  'fringes/ 

^^  Certain  of  my  hearers  objected  to  this  argument  that 
I  had  worked  out  the  '  law  of  the  two  levels '  on  the  basis 
of  the  observation  with  the  puzzle  picture.  This,  they 
contended,  represents  an  exceptional  case :  a  consciousness 
may,  in  fact,  show  only  a  single  level  or  may  show  a  great 
variety  of  levels  at  a  given  moment. 

The  first  part  of  the  objection  does  not  hold.  I  had 
worked  out  the  'law'  long  before  I  thought  of  the  use  of 
the  puzzle-picture;  it  was  in  the  course  of  an  extended 
search  for  a  suitable  illustration  of  the  law  that  the  puzzle- 
picture  occurred  to  me.  I  give  the  illustration  because 
it  seems  to  me  to  present,  in  clear  and  striking  form,  what 
is  the  normal  state  of  affairs ;  but  it  is  this  latter,  the  nor- 
mal conformation  of  consciousness,  that  I  am  concerned 
with.  Continued  observation  of  the  conscious  levels  under 
very  different  circumstances,  in  the  laboratory  and  in 
everyday  life,  led  me  to  the  law. 

The  second  part  of  the  objection  raises  the  question  of 
fact.  So  far,  it  is  both  legitimate  and  welcome.  When, 
however,  I  pressed  for  instances,  I  found  the  following 
sources  of  error:  (1)  confusion  of  peripheral  with  atten- 
tional  clearness ;  (2)  confusion  of  attentional  clearness  with 
cognition;  (3)  confusion  of  a  single  consciousness  with  a 
series  of  consciousnesses,  and  therefore  of  a  single  'act  of 
attention '  w^ith  several  successive  acts ;  and  ^ven  (4)  con- 
fusion of  the  question  of  the  conscious  'levels'  with  the 
question  of  the  'range'  of  attention.  I  got  no  clear 
case  either  of  a  single-levelled  or  of  a  many-levelled 
consciousness. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VI  371 

In  the  abstract,  the  objection  usually  took  this  form. 
*An  idea  or  a  presentation  may  pass  very  slowly  from  the 
background  to  the  focus  of  consciousness;  it  does  not 
always,  does  not  ordinarily,  jump  from  the  one  to  the 
other.  Hence  a  cross-section  must  show  ideas  or  presenta- 
tions in  all  sorts  of  intermediate  positions  between  ob- 
scurity and  maximal  clearness;  there  are  many  levels.' 
I  grant,  of  course,  that  we  do  not  perceive  anything  of  the 
nature  of  a  jump,  —  but  I  cannot  either  find  anything  of 
the  nature  of  the  slow  passage.  Now  a  certain  idea  is 
obscure;  now,  without  conscious  transition,  it  is  clear. 
I  admit,  also,  that  our  response  to  an  intruding  stimulus, 
when  the  attention  is  already  engaged,  varies  widely  with 
variation  of  conditions;  I  discuss  some  instances  in 
Lecture  VII.,  under  the  Maw  of  temporal  instability.' 
But  I  do  not  find,  in  this  variation  of  response,  any 
evidence  of  new  levels.  For  the  rest,  observation  of 
consciousness  in  the  rough  is  ahvays  unsatisfactory;  the 
appeal  lies  to  experiment. 

I  may  add  —  what  my  critics  did  not  suggest  —  that 
in  abnormal  circumstances  consciousness  may  conceiv- 
ably show  but  one  level;  or,  at  any  rate,  that  the  normal 
relation  of  the  two  levels  may  be  radically  changed. 
The  narrowed  consciousness  of  profound  hypnosis  may, 
at  moments,  be  wholly  clear;  the  idiotic  consciousness  may 
be  wholly  obscure.  Cf.  my  Primer  of  Psychology,  1902, 
273. 

^'  ToiipsychoL,  i.,  1883,  309. 

'"  Wundt,  Physiol  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  96  f.,  337  f.,  434, 
439.  Here  we  are  already  encroaching  upon  the  field  of 
inertia.  —  On  accommodation-time  in  reaction  experi- 
ments, cf.  G.  della  Valle,  Psychol  Studien,  iii.,  1907,  294  fF. 


372  NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VI 

"See  G.  Kafka,  Psychol.  Studien.,  ii.,  1906,  'HBQ  ff.; 
B.  Berliner,  ibid.,  iii.,  1907,  91  ff.,  with  references. 

In  order  to  bring  out  my  point  clearly  and  sharply,  I 
have  spoken  in  the  text  almost  as  if  the  ^n^^i^^-determina- 
tions  might  be  transferred  bodily  from  their  present  in- 
tensive context  to  that  of  clearness.  I  have,  it  is  true, 
safeguarded  the  proposal  by  insisting  on  the  necessity  of 
'interpretation.'  However,  my  idea  may  be  expressed 
more  accurately  —  and  more  cautiously  —  as  follows. 
Clearness  and  intensity  are  both  involved  in  the  determi- 
nations; it  is  evidently  wrong  to  ascribe  everything  to 
intensity  and  nothing  to  clearness.  Let  us,  then,  take  up 
the  Anstieg-G^uQsiion  from  the  side  of  clearness,  varying 
our  method  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure  varying  degrees  of 
clearness.  We  shall  then  be  able  to  give  the  earlier  results 
a  setting  in  which  due  regard  is  paid  to  each  one  of  the 
two  concurrent  factors. 

^"^  r attention,  1906,  17;   Attention,  1908,  13. 

^^  G.  T.  Fechner,  Revision  der  Hauptpuncte  der  Psy- 
chophysiky  1882,  283;  cf.  Ueber  einige  Verhaltnisse  des 
binocularen  Sehens,  Ahhandl.  d.  kgl.  s.  Ges.  d.  Wiss.,  vii., 
1860,  395:  "bei  der  willkuhrlichen  Richtung  der  Auf- 
merksamkeit  selbst  ist  der  bewusste  Willensact,  durch  den 
wir  die  Aufmerksamkeit  richten,  von  dem  Erfolge,  d.  i. 
der  gerichteten  und  fixirten  Aufmerksamkeit,  wohl  zu 
unterscheiden.  Jener  Act  erfolgt  ein-  flir  allemal,  und 
dann  bleibt  die  Aufmerksamkeit  gerichtet,  ohne  dass  wir 
einen  fortgesetzten  oder  neuen  bewussten  Willensact 
nothig  haben,  sie  in  dieser  Richtung  zu  erhalten."  — 
Stumpf,  TonpsychoL,  i.,  1883,  386;  cf.  244,  391;  ii.,  1890, 
318,  358.  F.  Auerbach,  in  Wiedemann's  Annalen,  iv., 
1878,  509  f.     F.  Schumann,  Nadir,  d.  Ges.  d.  Wiss.  zu 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI  373 

Gottingen,   1889,  536  ff. ;    Zeits.,  iv.,   1893,  1   ff  •    xxiii 
1900,  9;   McDougall,  Uind,  N.  S..  xv.,  1906,  349 

Here  belong,  at  least  in  part,  the  experiments  on  word- 
exposure  with  previous  suggestion;  certain  phenomena  of 
sensor  £z».^e««„^,- absolute  impression,  etc.;  and 
perhaps  also  certain  optical  illusions. 

"  On  Perseveralicnstendenz  see,  provisionally,  Ebbing- 
haus.  Gruruizuge,  i.,  691;    Wundt,  Physiol.  Psychol.,  l, 

'^  See  Wundt,  op.  cit,  45  flf. 


NOTES   TO   LECTURE  VII 

^  James,  Princ.  of  Psychol,  i.,  1890,  427  ff . ;  Wundt, 
Physiol.  Psychol. y  iii.,  1903,  410  fF. ;  Ebbinghaus,  Grund- 
zuge,  i.,  1905,  614  ff. 

2  Wundt,  op.  cit,  64  ff. 

^  H.  C.  Stevens,  A  Simple  Complication  Pendulum  for 
Qualitative  Work,  Am.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xv.,  1904,  581. 

^  M.  Geiger,  Neue  Complicationsversuche,  Philos.  Stu- 
dien,  xviii.,  1903,  347  ff.  See  also  the  references  there 
given. 

'  Wundt,  op.  cit,  67. 

®  W.  von  Tchisch,  Ueber  die  Zeitverhaltnisse  der  Apper- 
ception einfacher  und  zusammengesetzter  Vorstellungen, 
untersucht  mit  Hulfe  der  Complicationsmethode,  Philos. 
Studien,  ii.,  1885,  603  ff.,  esp.  621  f. 

^  Physiol.  Psychol.,  ii.,  1880,  272  ff.  Geiger  (op.  cit., 400) 
says  that  Wundt's  and  von  Tchisch's  explanations  are 
'grundverschieden.'  So  they  are!  But  I  think  that  von 
Tchisch,  if  he  believed  that  he  was  repeating  Wundt,  had 
some  excuse  for  his  mistake.  He  says  (622) :  "  die 
Apperception  reproducirt  unmittelbar  den  Eindruck." 
Wundt  says  (273) :  "  es  wird  auch  von  der  Apperception 
der  Eindruck  unmittelbar  reproducirt."  (Cf.  also  the 
passage  in  Lehrhuch  der  Physiologic  des  Menschen,  1878, 
793:  "das  Centralorgan  scheint  auf  einen  erwarteten 
Eindruck  so  sich  vorzubereiten,  dass  der  Vorbereitungsact 
selbst,  wenn  er  eine  gewisse  Intensitat  erreicht,  zur 
Erregung  wird.")     All  through   the   exposition   of  1880 

374 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII  375 

Wundt  makes  very  incautious  use  of  the '  Erinnerungsbild ' : 
it  is  not  difficult  to  read  'hallucination'  into  his  pages. 
In  the  edition  of  1887  (ii.,  339  f.)  the*  reproduction' 
and  the '  memory  image '  have  disappeared,  and  Wundt's 
theory  stands  out  in  sharp  contrast  to  von  Tchisch*s. 
Since  James  had  the  edition  of  1887  in  his  hands,  when 
preparing  his  chapter  on  Attention  for  the  press,  Geiger  is 
justified  in  charging  him  with  an  unwarranted  confusion 
of  the  two  views. 

'  Op.  cit,  415  f. 

*  Geiger,  op.  cit.,  399  ff.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  ex- 
planation offered  by  Ebbinghaus  in  Grundziige,  i.,  1902, 
593,  does  not  appear  ibid.,  1905,  615,  save  in  the  reference 
to  "allerlei  Ueberlegungen." 

^^  Physiol.  Psychologies  1874,  767.  The  phrase  appears 
in  all  subsequent  editions. 

^^  Geiger,  op.  cit.,  409  ff.  I  have,  of  course,  taken  the 
simplest  possible  case. 

^''Phijsiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  75  f.,  86. 

"  Ibid.,  352. 

"  Grundziige,  {.,  618  ff.  Ebbinghaus  is,  perhaps,  follow- 
ing James:    Princ,  i.,  409. 

*^  Op.  cit.,  334,  352.     The  italics  are  in  the  original. 

^^Op.  ciY.,  621.  — Both  Ebbinghaus  (620)  and  James 
(408)  refer  here  to  the  experiments  of  F.  Paulhan  (ReviLe 
scientifique,  3  S.,  xiii.,  1887,  684).  Neither  these  nor  the 
kindred  experiments  of  A.  Binet  {Rev.  philos.,  xxix.,  1890, 
138)  appear  to  me,  however,  to  bear  out  the  conclusions 
derived  from  them.  I  have  myself  repeated  and  extended 
PauDian's  work,  and  have  attained,  with  practice,  to  mark- 
edly greater  time-differences.  But  the  results  belong  to 
the  domain  of  habit,  of  *  normal  motor  automatisms,'  — 


376  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII 

where  analysis  is  not  difficult,  but  where  we  gain  no  know- 
ledge of  the  range  of  attention.  Simultaneity  of  two  psy- 
chologically disparate  'attentions'  is,  in  my  experience, 
altogether  impossible.  —  Cf .  S.  E.  Sharp,  Amer.  Journ. 
Psychol,  X.,  1899,  356,  381.  It  is  noteworthy  that,  in  the 
case  reported  by  R.  d'Allonnes  {Rev.  philos..  Deer.  1905, 
592  ff.),  there  was,  apparently,  no  loss  of  attention  with  loss 
of  feehng:  see  pp.  611  f.     Cf.,  however,  Lect.  II.,  note  2. 

"  Op,  cit,  404. 

'«  Op.  cit,  634. 

''  Op.  cit.,  366. 

2'  Op.  cit,  520;   cf.  518  ff.,  544  ff.,  558  ff. 

^^  Principles,  i.,  237.  The  reader  may  be  reminded  that 
the  distinction  between  '  substantive '  and  '  transitive '  parts 
of  the  stream  of  thought,  in  James'  exposition,  is  a  distinc- 
tion in  terms  of  time  alone ;  it  does  not  imply  discontinuity. 
*'  The  successive  psychoses  shade  gradually  into  each  other, 
although  their  rate  of  change  may  be  much  faster  at  one 
moment  than  at  the  next"  :  ibid.,  243. 

2'  Op.  cit.,  624. 

^^  References  to  the  experiments  on  touch  are  given  by 
L.  R.  Geissler,  Fluctuations  of  Attention  to  Cutaneous 
Stimuli,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xviii.,  1907,  309  ff.  Cf.  the 
general  account  in  my  Exper.  Psychol.,  I.,  ii.,  1901,  194  ff. ; 
and,  for  the  *Tastzuckungen,'  J.  Czermak,  Sitzungsher.  d. 
mathem.-naturw.  Classe  d.  kais.  Akademie  d.  Wissen- 
schaften  zu  Wien,  xv.,  1855,  486  f.  {Physiol.  Studien,  ii., 
64  f.). 

^  References  are  given  by  K.  Dunlap,  The  Fluctuation 
of  Diapason  and  Gas  Flame  Tones,  Psychol.  Rev.,  xi.,  1904, 
314  ff.  See  also  W.  Heinrich,  Zeits.  f.  Sinnesphysiologie, 
xli.,  1906,  57. 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VII  377 

^^  See  my  Exper.  Psychol.,  loc.  cit. ;  C.  E.  Ferree,  An 
Experimental  Examination  of  the  Phenomena  usually 
attributed  to  Fluctuation  of  Attention,  Amer.  Journ. 
Psychol,  xvii.,  1906,  84,  94  f. ;  J.  W.  Slaughter,  ibid.,  xii., 
1901,  331;  W.  Heinrich,  Sur  la  fonction  de  la  membrane 
du  tympan.  Bull,  de  V Academie  des  Sciences  de  Cracovie, 
July,  1903,  536  ff. ;  Ueber  die  Intensitatsanderungen 
schwacher  Gerausche,  Zeits.  f.  Sinnesphysiologie,  xli., 
1906,  57  f. ;  Ueber  das  periodische  Verschwinden  kleiner 
Punkte,  ibid.,  59  ff.  Heinrich's  view  of  auditory  accom- 
modation is  that  the  drum-skin  reacts  to  a  given  tone  in  very 
different  states  of  tension,  so  that  the  ^pulsations  of  the  ten- 
sor tympani  have  no  effect  upon  tonal  hearing.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  adjustment  of  the  membrane  to  noise  is 
extremely  delicate  ("das  Trommelfell  ist  ausserst  fein  auf 
Gerausche  gestimmt ;  .  .  .  man  ist  erstaunt  zu  sehen,  wie 
indifferent  das  Trommelfell  gegen  Gerausche  ist,  bis  man 
zu  der  richtigen  fiir  das  Gerausch  entsprechenden  Span- 
nungkommt"),  so  that  after  accommodation  is  effected 
the  slight  changes  of  tension  due  to  the  pulsating  muscle 
make  themselves  apparent  in  sensation. 

2«  C.  E.  Ferree,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xvii.,  1906,  81  ff., 
esp.  83;  xix.,  1908,  58  ff.,  esp.  129;  C.  Hess,  Arch.  f. 
Ophthalmol.,  xl.,  Abth.  2,  1894,  274  ff. ;  B.  Hammer,  Zeits. 
f.  Psychol,  u.  Physiol,  d.  Shmesorgane,  xxxvii.,  1905,363  ff., 
esp.  365,  375.  Hammer  has  the  priority  of  extended  pub- 
lication ;  but  I  have  given  first  place  to  Ferree  in  my  text 
because  his  work  was  begun,  and  his  theory  already  out- 
lined, in  1903.  A  brief  report  will  be  found  in  Journ. 
Philos.  Psychol.  Sci.  Meth.,  i.,  1904,  240;  Science,  N.  S., 
xix.,  1904,  659. 

Hammer  is  criticised  by  C.  E.  Seashore  in  Zeits.,  xxxix., 


378  NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VII 

1905,  448  ff.  With  the  critique  of  the  auditory  experi- 
ments I  am  in  general  agreement.  I  do  not  understand, 
however,  how  Seashore  can  say  of  adaptation  and  eye- 
movement  :  "  die  wichtige  Rolle  der  genannten  und  anderer 
physiologischer  Momente  ist  wohlbekannt.'*  I  suppose 
that  he  refers  to  Pace,  who  had  written  in  1902:  "for  the 
eye,  the  '  peripheral '  includes  the  retina ;  and,  so  far  as  I 
am  aware,  the  retinal  conditions  as  affected  by  the  fluctua- 
tions have  not  been  investigated'*  (Philos.  Studieriy  xx., 
234).  Pace  himself  works  in  terms  of  retinal  *  fatigue' 
(242),  i.e.  of  local  adaptation:  but  he  brings  peripheral 
fatigue  into  speculative  connection  with  'central  changes' 
and  the  process  of  accommodation,  and  says  nothing  what- 
ever of  eye-movement  (244).  I  know  of  no  further  refer- 
ence before  1904,  when  G.  E.  Miiller  sets  Hess'  observations 
in  the  perspective  of  the  experiments  on  attentional  fluc- 
tuation (Gesichtspunkte  und  Tatsachen,  110),  and  the  two 
notes  on  Ferree's  work  appear  in  Woodbridge's  Journal 
and  in  Science.  — 

In  a  paper  entitled  The  Fluctuation  of  Visual  Stimuli 
of  Point  Area,  read  by  title  at  the  5th  Annual  Meeting 
of  Experimental  Psychologists  (Cambridge,  Mass.,  April 
15-17,  1908)  and  to  be  published  in  the  Amer.  Journ. 
Psychol.,  Mr.  Ferree  reports  a  repetition  and  extension 
of  the  experiments  of  Heinrich,  referred  to  in  the  fore- 
going'^Note,  and  concludes  that  "  in  so  far  as  adaptation- 
tests  can  be  applied,  these  stimuli  follow  the  laws  of 
adaptation  and  recovery,  in  the  phase-relations  of  their 
fluctuations,  as  closely  as  do  the  areas  commonly  em- 
ployed." Positive  evidence  is  also  adduced  against 
Heinrich's  theory  of  lenticular  pulsation. 

Mr.  Ferree  informs  me,  further,    of   the   following  re- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII  379 

suits  of  unpublished  experiments  with  auditory  stimuli. 
(1)  The  tone  of  an  electrically  driven  tuning-fork  does 
not  fluctuate  at  the  limen,  and  objective  interruptions  of 
the  sound  are  at  once  remarked.  (2)  Of  three  trained 
observers,  tested  at  the  same  time  with  the  watch-tick, 
two  reported  no  fluctuations  (90  sec.-2  min.),  while  the 
third  gave  fluctuations  of  the  orthodox  sort.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  positions  of  the  observers  were  not  inter- 
changed. 

Hammer  has  done  good  service  in  calling  attention  to 
the  objective  inconstancy  of  the  watch-tick  (op.  cif., 
371  ff.).  I  am  sure,  however,  that  this  observation  must 
be  supplemented,  for  explanatory  purposes,  by  reference 
to  sound-reflections  or  similar  phenomena.  We  were 
accustomed,  in  the  early  nineties,  to  perform  Sanford's 
expenment  (5Sb,  A7ner.  J ourn.  Psychol.,  iv.,  1891,  307; 
61  6,  Course  in  Exper.  Psychol.,  1898,  55)  in  the  Cornell 
Laboratory  with  a  number  of  students  simultaneously. 
We  found,  as  I  remember,  occasional  instances  of  absence 
of  fluctuation,  and  a  good  many  cases  of  approximately 
coincident  fluctuation ;  but  we  also  found  many  cases  of 
non-coincidence. 

"  See  Stumpf,  Tonpsychol.,  i.,  40  f.,  360. 

^^Helmholtz,  Physiol.  Opiik,  1896,  242,  510;  so  J. 
Muller,  Ueber  die  phantastischen  Gesichtserscheinungen, 
1826,  15  f .  ("  diese  Lichterscheinung  war  mit  dem  Ausath- 
men  synchronisch").  Fechner,  curiously  enough,  found 
no  such  oscillation :  Revision,  1882,  32.  —  A.  Lehmann, 
Philos.  Studien,  ix.,  1894,  66  fF. ;  J.  W.  Slaughter,  Amer, 
Journ.  Psychol,  xii.,  1901,  329  ff. 

^^  The  whole  series  of  related  articles  is  as  follows : 
Slaughter,  The  Fluctuations  of  the  Attention  in  Some  of 


380  NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VII 

their  Psychological  Relations,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xii., 

1901,  313  fF. ;  R.  W.  Taylor,  The  Effect  of  Certain  Stimuli 
upon  the  Attention  Wave,  ibid.y  335  ff. ;  H.  C.  Stevens,  The 
Relation  of  the  Fluctuations  of  Judgments  in  the  Estima- 
tion of  Time  Intervals  to  Vaso-motor  Waves,  ibid.,  xiii., 

1902,  1  ff. ;  W.  B.  Pillsbury,  Attention  Waves  as  a  Means  of 
Measuring  Fatigue,  ibid.,  xiv.,  1903,  541  ff. ;  C.  E.  Gallo- 
way, The  Effect  of  Stimuli  upon  the  Length  of  Traube- 
Hering  Waves,  ibid.,  xv.,  1904,  499  ff . ;  B.  Killen,  The 
Effects  of  Closing  the  Eyes  upon  the  Fluctuations  of  the 
Attention,  ibid.,  512  ff. ;  G.  L.  Jackson,  The  Telephone 
and  Attention  Waves,  Journ.  Phil.  Psychol.  Sci.  Meth., 
iii.,  1906,  602  ff. 

Cf.  also  Pillsbury's  general  account  in  Vattention,  1906, 
90  ff. ;  Attention,  1908,  69  ff. ;  F.  G.  Bonser,  A  Study  of  the 
Relations  between  Mental  Activity  and  the  Circulation 
of  the  Blood,  Psychol.  Rev.,  x.,  1903,  120  ff.  Ct.  W.  Mc- 
Dougall,  Mind,  N.  S.,  xv.,  1906,  356  f. ;  H.  Berger,  Ueber 
die  korp.  Aeusserungen  psych.  Zustdnde,  ii.,  1907,  153  ff. 

^^  S.  Exner,  Entwurf  zu  einer  physiologischen  Erkldrung 
der  psychischen  Erscheinungen,  i.,  1894,  302  f. ;  Pillsbury, 
Amer.  Journ.  Psych.,  xiv.,  552. 

Exner  writes  (302) :  "  nach  meinen  Selbstbeobachtungen 
diirfte  die  Dauer  der  gleichmassigen  Lebhaftigkeit  einer 
Vorstellung  kaum  eine  Secunde  sein."  Even  if  we  put  the 
very  strictest  interpretation  upon  '  gleichmassig,'  the  state- 
ment seems  curiously  exaggerated. 

^^  Philos.  Studien,  xx.,  1902,  234. 

^^  Lehmann,  op.  cit. ;  other  references  in  Ferree,  Amer. 
Journ.  Psychol.,  xix.,  1908,  58  ff. 

^^  Cf.  The  Problems  of  Experimental  Psychology,  Amer. 
Journ.  Psychol.,  xvi.,  1905,  218, 


NOTES  TO   LECTURE  VII  381 

In  the  first  edition  of  his  Grundzuge  (i.,  1897,  263) 
Ebbinghaus  wrote  as  follows:  "Nun  sind  aber  doch  die 
Licht-  und  Farbenempfindungen,  wie  wichtig  sie  auch 
immer  als  Material  flir  weitere  Verarbeitungen  sein  mogen, 
an  und  fur  sick  noch  relativ  niedere  und  elementare  Be- 
thatigungen  der  Seele,  das  sie  vermittelnde  Organ  ist  ein 
Aussenwerk  des  eigentlichen  Seelenorgans.  Wenn  also 
schon  das  vergleichsweise  Einfache  sich  der  eindringenden 
und  intensiven  Beschaftigung  mit  ihm  als  ein  ungeahnt  und 
fast  verwirrend  Reichhaltiges  enthiillt,  -wie  mag  es  erst  mit 
dem  hoheren  Seelenleben,  das  doch  zweifellos  etwas  be- 
trachtlich  Verwickelteres  ist,  in  Wahrheit  bestellt  sein?" 
I  fear  that  there  is  here  a  *  trace,'  as  the  analysts  say,  of  an 
untenable  genetic  psychology.  That  apart,  I  am  —  as  the 
above  quotation  shows  —  unable  to  see  the  force  of  Ebbing- 
haus' argument.     The  passage  is  not  reprinted  in  1905. 

What  are  we  to  say,  however,  to  the  results  of  H. 
Berger  (Korp.  Aeusserungen,  ii.,  1907,  118  ff.,  181  ff.), 
who  was  able,  in  Fechner's  words,  to  look  into  the  brain 
of  another  person,  and  who  there  saw  the  apperception 
waves  with  all  desirable  plainness  ?  This,  surely :  that 
the  introspective  control  which  Berger  finds  lacking  in  his 
first  series  of  experiments  (139  f.)  is  equally  necessary 
for  the  series  made  by  *  Zoneff's  method.'  There  is  no 
evidence  that  the  '  inattention  '  of  his  observers  was  not 
an  *  attention  to  something  else.'  The  same  criticism 
holds  of  the  experiments  of  Zoneff  and  Meumann,  so  far 
as  their  report  has  been  published ;  we  are  not  told  any- 
thing in  detail  of  the  *  Nachlassen  der  Aufmerksamkeit ' 
{Philos.  Studien,  xviii.,  1903,  46).  But,  apart  from  this, 
it  was  a  paradox  of  the  older  investigations  that  fluctua- 
tion of  attention  occurred  without  any  subjective  remis- 
sion of  attention. 


382  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII 

^*  L.  R.  Geissler,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xviii.,  1907, 
310  f. ;   E.  A.  Pace,  Philos.  Studien,  xx.,  1902,  244. 

The  fluctuation  of  two  simultaneously  presented  stimuli 
offers  no  new  difficulty.  I  have  myself  made  prehminary 
experiments  upon  memory-images,  without  observing 
fluctuation.  See,  however,  N.  Lange,  Philos.  Studien,  iv., 
1888,408  ff.;  H.  Eckener,  ihid.,  viii.,  1893,  370,  379;  H. 
Munsterberg,  Beitr.  zur  exper.  Psychol.,  ii.,  1889,  119  ff. 
The  illusions  of  reversible  perspective  (Lange,  406),  which 
still  figure  in  Pillsbury's  account  {U attentioriy  93  ;  Attention^ 
1908,  71),  have  been  ruled  out  of  court  by  Wundt  himself, 
who  finds  their  primary  conditions  in  the  physiological  pro- 
cesses of  fixation  and  eye-movement  {Die  geometrisch- 
optischen  Tduschungen,  1898,  23  [Abh.  d.  mathem.-phys. 
CI.  d.  kgl.  sdchs.  Ges.  d.  Wiss.,  xxiv.,  75];  Phys.  Psych.,  ii. 
1902,  545  ff.). 

^^  Klilpe,  Outlines,  429 ;   Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige,  623  f. 

^'  See  A.  J.  Hamlin,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  viii.,  1896, 
3  ff. ;  F.  E.  Moyer,  ihid.,  1897,  405  ;  L.  G.  Birch,  ibid.,  ix., 
1897,  45;  L.  Darlington  and  E.  B.  Talbot,  ibid.,  1898, 
332 ;  E.  B.  Titchener,  ibid.,  343.  My  outline  of  method  is 
(as  I  say  later  in  the  text)  entirely  schematic ;  but  I  think 
that  with  time  and  patience  and  technical  skill  the  method 
itself  can  be  carried  through.  And  I  know  of  no  other 
that  will  serve  the  same  purpose. 

It  has  often  been  proposed  that  the  method  of  distraction 
should  be  applied  objectively,  without  introspective  control. 
See,  e.g.,  A.  Bertels,  Versuche  liber  die  Ablenkung  der 
Aufmerksamkeit,  1889  ;  E.  J.  Swift,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol., 
v.,  1892,  1  ff. ;  KUlpe,  op.  cit.,  428  f. ;  E.  Krapelin,  Psychol 
Arbeiten,  I,  1895,  57  ff . ;  R.  Vogt,  ibid.,  iii.,  1899,  62  ff . ; 
W.   McDougall,   Brit.   Journ.   Psijchol.,   l,   1905,   435  ff. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII  383 

Stumpf  sees  the  difficulty,  but  does  not  suggest  a  way  out : 
TonpsychoL,  i.,  74  f.  Pillsbury,  in  his  new  chapter  in 
Attention,  89  fF.,  treats  the  method  in  this  objective  way, 
and  thus  naturally  —  but  mistakenly  —  regards  the  work 
published  from  the  Cornell  Laboratory  not  as  preliminary, 
but  as  done  for  its  own  sake.  I  have,  however,  never  be- 
lieved that  the  method  of  distraction,  taken  objectively, 
could  furnish  any  psychological  result,  and  I  can  therefore 
subscribe  to  Pillsbury's  criticism.  In  1898  I  wrote  as  fol- 
lows :  "  The  three  Studies  .  .  .  were  undertaken  with  the 
view  of  discovering  a  means  of  distraction  that  should  be 
capable  of  gradation,  uniform  in  its  working  and  applicable 
to  normal  subjects.  With  such  a  distraction  it  would  be 
possible,  on  the  qualitative  side,  to  describe  the  attributes 
of  mental  processes  given  in  the  state  of  inattention,  and,  on 
the  quantitative,  to  measure  the  magnitude  and  delicacy 
of  sensitivity  and  sensible  discrimination  in  the  same  state  " 
(343  f. :  the  italics  are  not  in  the  original).  The  'state  of 
inattention'  is  a  clumsy  expression,  but  it  is  evident  that 
my  psychological  appeal  was  to  lie  to  introspection. 

^^  Stumpf ,  TonpsychoL,  i.,  73  f . ;  H.  Munsterberg,  Die 
Willenshandlung,  1888,  72;  Beitr.  z.  exper.  Psychol.,  ii., 
1889,  24. 

^*  See,  e.g.,  B.  Bourdon,  Observations  comparatives  sur 
la  reconnaissance,  la  discrimination  et  Tassociation,  Rev. 
philos.,  xl.,  1895, 166  ff . ;  E.  Toulouse  et  N.  Vaschide,  Atten- 
tion et  distraction  sensorielles,  Compt.  rend,  de  la  soc.  de 
bioL,  1899,  964  ff. ;  A.  Binet,  Attention  et  adaptation, 
Annee  psychoL,  vi.,  1900,  248  ff. ;  F.  Consoni,  La  mesure 
de  Tattention  chez  les  enfants  faibles  d'esprit  (phrenas- 
theniques).  Arch,  de  Psychol,  ii.,  1903,  209  fF. ;  W.  Peters, 
Aufmerksamkeit  und  Reizschwelle :    Versuche  zur  Mes- 


384  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII 

sung  der  Aufmerksamkeitskonzentration,  Arch.  f.  d.  ges. 
Psychol,  viii.,  1906,  385  ff. ;  P.  Janet,  The  Mental  State 
of  Hysiericals,  1901,  70  ff. ;  Munsterberg,  Die  Association 
successiver  Vorstellungen,  Zeits.f.  Psychol,  i.,  1890,  99  ff. ; 
W.  G.  Smith,  The  Relation  of  Attention  to  Memory,  Mind, 
N.  S.,  iv.,  1895,  47  ff. ;  T.  Ziehen,  Ein  einfacher  Apparat 
zur  Messung  der  Aufmerksamkeit,  Monatsschr.  f.  Psy- 
chiat.  u.  Neurologic,  xiv.,  1903,  231. 

On  the  use  of  the  MV,  see  A.  Oehrn,  Experimentelle 
Studien  zur  Individualpsychologie,  Psychol  Arheiten,  i., 
1895,92  ff.,  esp.  128,  138;  V.  Henri,  yl?m^e  psy clwl,  il, 
1897,  245;  J.  J.  van  Bierv^Het,  Journ.  de  Psychol,  l,  1904, 
230;  A.  Binet,  A7in.  psychol,  xi.,  1905,  71.  On  the  use 
of  the  fluctuation-values,  see  E.  Wiersma,  Zeits.f.  Psychol, 
xxviii.,  1902,  180  ff . ;  Pillsbury,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol, 
xiv.,  1903,  541  ff. 

^^  For  a  list  of  the  investigations  of  attention  by  the  ex- 
pressive method,  see  H.  C.  Stevens,  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol, 
xvi.,  1905,  table  facing  469;  and  add  E.  A.  McC.  Gamble, 
ibid.,  xvi.,  261;  M.  Kelchner,  Arch,  f  d.  ges.  Psychol,  v., 
1905,  7  ff.;  H.  Berger,  Korp.  Aeusserungeyi,  i.,  1904, 
77  ff.;  ii.,  1907,  40  ff.,  118  ff.,  167  ff.  Noteworthy  is 
Binet's  suggestion  of  immobility:  Aniiee  psychol,  vi., 
1900,  279. 


NOTES   TO  LECTURE  VIII 

^  With  these  paragraphs,  cf.  Wundt^  Physiol.  Psychol.,  ii., 
1902,  362  ff. ;  also  the  insertion  from  the  fourth  edition 
in  Princ.  of  Physiol.  Psychol.,  i.,  1904,  21  ff. ;  Orth,  GefUhl 
u.  Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  6  ff.  (esp.the  remarks  onTetens). 

^  Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xvi.,  1905,  213. 

^  See  the  discussion  in  Psychol.  Bulletin,  iii.,  1906,  52  ff. 

*  J.  Merkel,  Philos.  Studien,  iv.,  1888,  594;  v.,  1889,  245. 
^  Phijsiol.  Psychol,  ii.,  1902,  369. 

^  The  first  idea  of  the  theory  here  outHned  came  to  me 
some  years  ago  —  in  1901  or  1902  —  in  the  course  of  con- 
versation with  my  then  assistant.  Professor  G.  M.  Whipple. 
How  much  of  it  belongs  to  Dr.  Whipple  and  how  much 
to  myself  I  cannot  now  say,  and  I  imagine  that  Dr.  Whipple 
is  in  the  same  case.  In  its  general  features,  the  theory 
seems  to  resemble  that  put  forward  by  M.  F.  Washburn 
{Journ.  Philos.  Psychol.  Sci.  Meth.,  iii.,  1906,  62  f.).  I  do 
not  agree,  however,  that  mental  processes  may  appear,  in 
alternation,  as  feelings  and  as  organic  sensations  or  ideas. 
Another  similar  view  is  that  of  R.  Lagerborg,  Das  Gefiihls- 
'problem,  1905,  36 ;  Arch.f.  d.  ges.  Psychol,  ix.,  1907,  455  f. 

^  Cf.  the  terminological  note  in  Orth,  Gefilhlu.  Bewusst- 
seinslage, 1903,  5;  and  H.  N.  Gardiner,  Journ.  Philos. 
Psychol  Sci.  Meth.,  iii.,  1906,  57  f. 

*  Ebbinghaus,  Grundziige,  568  ff. 

®  J.   J.  Thomson,    The  Corpuscular   Theory  of  Matter, 
1907,  1.   "  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  physicist,  a  theory 
of  matter  is  a  policy  rather  than  a  creed ;   its  object  is  to 
2  c  385 


386  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VIII 

connect  or  coordinate  apparently  diverse  phenomena,  and 
above  all  to  suggest,  stimulate,  and  direct  experiment." 

'^^  Op.  cit,  i.,  1902,  577  f. ;   i.,  1905,  602  f. 

"G.  F.  Stout,  Analytic  Psychol,  i.,  1896,  224  ff.;  cf. 
Manual  of  Psychol,  1899,  232  ff. 

'2  Kulpe,  Outlines,  272. 

^^  U attention,  1906,  72;  Attention,  1908,  55.  "Things 
are  interesting  because  we  attend  to  them,  or  because  we 
are  likely  to  attend  to  them ;  we  do  not  attend  because  they 
are  interesting."  —  Cf.  with  this  discussion  F.  Arnold,  The 
Psychology  of  Interest,  Psychol  Rev.,  xiii.,  1906,  221  ff., 
291  ff. ;  Interest  and  Attention,  Psychol  Bulletin,  ii.,  1905, 
361  ff. ;  W.  H.  Burnham,  iVttention  and  Interest,  Amer. 
Journ.  Psychol,  xix.,  1908,  14  ff. 

^^  Physiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  342:  the  following  pages 
give  the  distinction  between  active  and  passive  appercep- 
tion.    Cf.  Grundriss,  1905,  266  (Engl,  1907,  246). 

^^  Tonpsychol,  ii.,  1890,  283.  Voluntary  attention  is 
"  nichts  Anderes  als  der  Wille,  sofern  er  auf  ein  Bemerken 
gerichtet  ist."  Involuntary  attention  may  pass  into  volun- 
tary :  "  sie  ist  nicht  mehr  davon  verschieden,  als  der  Wille 
uberhaupt  von  Lusgefuhlen  verschieden  ist.  Fassen  wir 
*  Geflihl '  im  weiteren  Sinne,  so  kann  der  Wille  ja  selbst  zu 
den  GefUhlen,  und  zwar  natlirlich  zu  den  positiven  Ge- 
fUhlen,  gerechnet  werden."  The  whole  passage,  277  ff.,  is 
interesting,  though  there  are  parts  that  I  do  not  find  very 
clear. 

^'  Grundziige,  I,  1905,  588,  607,  610  f .  —  On  the  other 
side,  cf.  A.  Marty,  Vjs.f.  wiss.  Philos.,  xiii.,  1889,  195  ff. 

^'  Op.  cit,  603. 

^^  Physiol  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  279;  cf.  Grundriss,  1905, 
230  ff.  (Engl.,  1907,  213  ff.).     The  doctrine  appears  first 


NOTES   TO  LECTURE  VIII  387 

in  the  Physiol.  Psychol,  of  1880  (ii.,  410),  and  is  worked  out 
in  the  essay  on  Die  Entwicklung  des  Willens,  Essays,  1885, 
286  ff. 

In  Essays,  1906,  344,  Wundt  ascribes  his  "  Bekehrung  zu 
einem  psychologisehen  Voluntarismus "  to  two  influences: 
the  positive  indications  of  his  own  experiments  on  reactions, 
and  the  negative  effect  of  J.  Baumann's  intellectuahsm. 
Now  the  reaction  experiments  were  done  ten  years  before  the 
second  edition  of  the  P.  P.  appeared,  whereas  Baumann's 
Handbuch  der  Moral  was  pubHshed  in  1879.  Here,  then, 
is  another  instance  of  the  movement  of  Wundt's  thought,  as 
I  have  characterised  it  in  Lecture  IV. :  the  voluntaristic 
idea  had  been  '  incubated '  for  a  decade ;  it  was  gradually 
maturing  in  Wundt's  mind ;  and  Baumann  furnished  the 
external  stimulus  that  brought  it  to  clear  expression. 

^®  Art.  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit,  xx.,  1886,  43. 

2«  E.  D.  Cope,  The  Origin  of  the  Fittest,  1887,  395,  413, 
447.  Cope's  essays  are  the  more  interesting  as  he  seems 
to  have  worked  out  his  ideas  independently,  without  know- 
ledge of  contemporary  psychology ;  he  makes  at  most  only 
a  casual  reference  to  Carpenter  or  Bain. 

^^  Cf.  my  paper  in  the  Pop.  Sci.  Monthly,  Ix.,  1902, 
458  ff.  I  should  now  replace  the  Wundtian  argument, 
467  f.,  by  pointing  out  that  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any 
reflex  movement  —  heart-beat,  widening  and  narrowing  of 
the  pupil,  etc.  —  that  may  not  be  brought,  to  a  certain  de- 
gree, under  'conscious  control';  and  I  should  urge  that 
this  state  of  affairs  probably  indicates  a  resumption,  not  an 
usurpation  of  sovereignty.  Cf .  G.  H.  Lewes,  The  Physical 
Basis  of  Mind,  1877,  367  ff. 

I  add  only,  to  avoid  possible  misunderstanding,  that  my 
own  position  is  that  of  parallelism,  not  of  interactionism ; 


388  NOTES  TO   LECTURE   VIII 

and  that  there  is  no  reason  to  be  scared  by  the  bogey  of 
*the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters.'  There  are  more 
ways  than  one  of  speculating  oneself  out  of  a  biological 
difficulty ! 

"^^  Physiol  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  348;    cf.  116. 

2^  Grundriss,  1905,  262  (Engl.,  1907,  243). 

^^  See  Lecture  VI.,  note  38,  sub  fin. 

^  I  have  avoided  any  detailed  reference  to  the  central 
conditions  of  attention.  The  most  recent  accounts  are 
those  of  W.  McDougall  {Mind,  N.  S.,  xi.,  1902,  316;  xii., 
1903,  289,  473;  xv.,  1906,  329;  cf.  Physiol  Psijchol,  1905, 
90  ff.)  and  Ebbinghaus  (Grundzuge,  1905,  628  ff.).  Pills- 
bury  gives  a  general  review  of  theories  in  his  Attention^ 
1908,  chs.  xiv.  ff.  As  for  the  central  conditions  of  affec- 
tion, I  do  not  see  that  we  need  travel  beyond  the  Korper- 
fUhlsphdre ;  but  this  is  mere  guesswork. 

2'  Physiol  Psychol,  i.,  1893,  588,  590. 

^'  Ibid.,  ii.,  1902,  357. 

2«  Grundriss,  1905,  263  (Engl.,  1907,  244).  "  Jeder  In- 
halt  des  Bewusstseins  libt  eine  Wirkung  auf  die  Aufmerk- 
samkeit  aus,  infolge  deren  er  sich  teils  durch  seine  eigene 
Gefuhlsfarbung,  teils  durch  die  an  die  Funktion  der  Auf- 
merksamkeit  gebundene  Gefuhle  verrat.  Die  gesamte 
Ruckwirkung  dieser  dunkel  bewussten  Inhalte  auf  die 
Aufmerksamkeit  verschmilzt  dann  aber,  gemass  den  all- 
gemeinen  Gesetzen  der  Verbindung  der  Gefuhlskom- 
ponenten,  mit  den  an  die  klar  bewussten  Inhalte  gebun- 
denen  Gefuhlen  zu  einem  einzigen  Totalgefuhl."  Here  it 
is  the  obscure  contents  that  react  upon  the  attention  !  We 
must  surely  conclude  that  the  doctrine  has  not  settled  down 
to  final  form.  Indeed,  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  the 
section  on  'Die  Gefuhle  als  psychophysische  Vorgange'  is 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VIII  389 

intended  to  convey  that  idea  {Physiol.  Psychol. y  ii.,  1902, 
358  ff.,  esp.  362). 

Pillsbury,  in  his  Attention  (1908,  189  ff.),  appears  to 
refer  to  the  Wundtian  doctrine  of  1893,  and  not  to  that  of 
the  current  edition  of  the  Physiologische  Psychologie. 

^^  Physiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  341,  342  ff . ;  Grundriss, 
1905,  264  f.  (Engl.,  1907,  244  f.). 

^^  See,  e.g.,  Orth,  Gefiihl  u.  Bewusstseinslage,  1903,  50. 

^^Princ.  of  Psychol,  i.,  1890,  300. 

^^  H.  E.  Kohn,  Zur  Theorie  der  AufmerJcsamkeity  1894, 
48;  cf.  my  Exjper.  Psychol,  I.,  ii.,  1901,  210  f. 

^  Kohn  says  (op.  cit.,  36) :  "  wenn  Wundt  statt  wir  *  ich ' 
gesagt  hatte,  so  konnte  man  ihn  den  Satz  [wir  nehmen  in 
uns  in  wechselnder  Weise  mehr  oder  weniger  deuthch  eine 
Thatigkeit  wahr]  nicht  bestreiten.  Ich  muss  jedoch  dem 
gegeniiber  wiederholen,  dass  ich  bei  der  sorgfaltigsten  Prii- 
fung  meiner  Bewusstseinslage  nur  selten  ein  solches  Ge- 
fiihl gefunden  habe." 

^  Grundriss,  loc.  cit. 

^^  Physiol  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  342 ;  Grundriss,  265  (Engl., 
245). 

^^  Physiol  Psychol,  341. 

"  Mind,  N.  S.,  xi.,  1902,  342  f.  "The  complexity  of  the 
upper  levels  [of  the  nervous  system],  their  numerous  inter- 
connections, the  extreme  variability  of  the  resistances  pre- 
sented by  them,  and  the  number  of  alternative  paths  that 
may  be  opened  in  turn  to  the  excitation-process,  are  the 
physiological  basis  of  the  '  Lebhaftigkeit '  of  the  presenta- 
tion." 

'«  Grundzuge,  i.,  1905,  628  ff.  The  effect  of  Ebbinghaus' 
cortical  Hemmungen  and  Bahnungen  is  "  die  HerbeifUhrung 
diffuser  und  sich  verlaufender  Erregungen  einerseits,  kon- 
zentrierter  und  differenzierter  Erregungen  andererseits." 


390  NOTES   TO  LECTURE  VIII 

^T attention,  1906,  194;   Attention,  1908,  284. 

^"  It  is,  of  course,  always  possible  to  fall  back  upon  blood- 
pressure  and  rate  of  pulse  and  respiratory  changes,  and  so  to 
save  the  motor  character  of  the  organism.  I  do  not  doubt 
that  these  internal  reactions  occur.  But  we  are  talking 
attention:  and  to  make  them  available  for  the  theory  of 
attention,  it  must  be  shown,  first,  that  a  concomitant  varia- 
tion actually  obtains,  and  then,  secondly,  that  it  is  relevant, 
—  that  the  two  series  of  correlated  phenomena  are  not 
referable  to  a  common  set  of  conditions.  As  things  are, 
the  observations  upon  the  first  point  are  comparatively 
rough,  and  the  evidence  available  upon  the  second  does  not 
favour  the  motor  hypothesis.    See  Pillsbury,  Attention,  282  f . 

On  *  motor'  psychology  in  general,  see  I.  M.  Bentley, 
Amer.  Journ.  Psychol.,  xvii.,  1906,  293  ff.,  and  the  refer- 
ences there  given;  as  well  as  my  Exp.  Psychol.,  II.,  ii., 
1905,  364  ff. 

*^  r attention,  1906,  280  f . ;   Attention,  1908,  311  ff. 

*2  Grundzuge,  i.,  1905,  606  f.  There  are,  Ebbinghaus 
declares,  "gewisse  reflektorisch  ausgeloste  Bewegungen," 
that  we  sense  "als  mannigfache  Spannungen  oder  Betati- 
gungen,  ohne  sie  doch  zumeist  bestimmt  zu  lokalisieren, 
d.  h. :  man  empfindet  ganz  allgemein  sich  als  angespannt 
oder  tatig,  indem  man  aufmerksam  ist." 

^^  Physiol.  Psychol,  iii.,  1903,  254  ff.,  342  ff. ;  Grundriss, 
223  ff.,  264  f.,  266  (Engl.,  207  ff.,  244  f.,  246  f.). 

^*  We  have  mentioned  this  law  above,  p.  34  of  the  text. 
Wundt  uses  it,  in  connection  with  action,  Physiol.  Psychol., 
iii.,  1903,  277  ff.,  471  ff . ;  Grundriss,  230  ff.,  239  f.  (Engl., 
213  ff.,  221  f.);  and  esp.  Die  Sprache,  l,  1900,  31  ff . ;  i., 
1904,  37  ff.  It  is  also  employed  by  G.  H.  Lewes,  passim; 
see,  e.g..  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  l,  1874,  134  ff.,  226  ff ; 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VIII  391 

iii.,  1879,  93  ff.,  143  ff.,  397  ff.,  432  f . ;  Physical  Basis 
of  Mind,  1877,  322  ff .,  367  ff. ;  Study  of  Psijchology,  1879, 
19  ff.,  etc. 

'^  Cf.  my  Primer  of  Psychol,  1902,  76  f. ;  Outline,  1902, 
135  ff.,  139  f. 

^^  Grundzuge,  607,  610  f.  "Bei  der  unwillkUrlichen  Auf- 
merksamkelt  ist  weiter  nichts  vorhanden  als  [ein  energisch 
hervortretender  interessierender  Eindruck  und  Spannungs- 
oder  Tatigkeitsempfindungen],  bei  der  willkiirlichen  kommt 
noch  hinzu  eine  unablassig  den  Eindruck  als  bevorstehend 
oder  als  fortdauernd  vorwegnehmende  Vorstelliing.  Sie 
verhalten  sich  also  zueinander  wie  Trieb  und  Wille." 

^^  Ebbinghaus  writes  (op.  cit.,  611):  "dass  ich  endlich 
sachlich  die  Beschreibung  des  Unterschiedes  zwischen  pas- 
siver  und  aktiver  Apperception,  als  eines  einfachen,  nur 
durch  ein  Motiv  hestimmten  Wollens  und  eines  zwischen 
mehreren  Motiven  wdhlenden  Wollens,  nicht  zutreffend 
finden  kann,  gelit  aus  der  oben  gegebenen  abweichenden 
Darstellung  dieses  Unterschiedes  hervor."  This  formula- 
tion is  not  quite  fair  to  Wundt,  since  the  Wahlhandlung 
is,  for  him,  just  as  much  '  bestimmt '  as  is  the  Triehhand- 
lung.  As  for  the  'nicht  zutreffend,'  I  have  shown  in  the 
text  that  Wundt's  distinction  includes  that  of  Ebbinghaus, 
and  simply  adds  a  causal  to  the  common  descriptive  ac- 
count. The  terminological  issue,  of  the  definition  of  '  will,  ' 
is,  as  Ebbinghaus  says,  a  '  Zweckmassigkeitsfrage ' ;  and 
here,  again,  I  am  obliged  to  side  with  Wundt.  — The  reader 
of  Ebbinghaus'  GrundzUge  must,  I  think,  feel  that  the  author 
is  not  particularly  interested  in  attention,  and  has  not  made 
the  most  of  the  available  material.  The  chapter  is,  surely, 
far  below  the  level  of  those  on  sensation  and  memory.  I 
am  sorry,  nevertheless,  to  end  these  Notes  with  adverse 
criticism  of  a  work  which  I  greatly  admire. 


INDEX   OF  NAMES 

References  to  the  notes  begin  with  "page  SSI. 


Alechsieff,  N.,  47,  51,  55,  332, 

350. 
Allonnes,  G.  R.  d',  328,  376. 
Angell,   J.   R.,   44,    187,   221   f., 

228,  230,  240,  331,  356,  368  f. 
Aristotle,  291. 
Arnold,  F.,  386. 
Aubert,  H.,  27,  327. 
Auerbach,  F.,  372. 

Bain,  A.,  82,  172,  352,  387. 
Baldwin,  J.  M.,   184  f.,  220  ff., 

228,  230,  338,  355,  367. 
Baumann,  J.,  387. 
Bentley,  I.  M.,  217  f.,  323,  326  f., 

361,  390. 
Berger,  H.,  380  f.,  384. 
Berliner,  B.,  372. 
Bertels,  A.,  382. 
Biervliet,  J.  J.  van,  384. 
Binet,  A.,  280.  375,  383  ff. 
Birch,  L.  G.,  382. 
Bonser,  F.  G.,  380. 
Bourdon,    B.,    81   f.,    288,   338, 

383 
Bradley,  F.  H.,  185,  355. 
Brahn,  M.,  167,  350. 
Braunschweiger,  D.,  172,  352  f., 

359 
Breese,  B.  B.,  358. 
Brentano,  F.,  33,  328. 
Bruckner,  A.,  358. 
Bumham,  W.  H.,  334,  386. 

Calkins,  M.  W.,  325,  327. 
Carpenter,  W.  B.,  387. 
Cohn,  J.,  161,  347. 
Consoni,  F.,  383. 
Cope,  E.  D.,  300,  387. 
Czermak,  J.  N.,  268,  376. 


Darlington,  L.,  382. 
Delbceuf,  J.  R.  L.,  201  f.,  358. 
Descartes,  R.,  82. 
Dessoir,  M.,  330,  353,  359. 
Dietze,  G.,  233,  237,  368  f. 
Diirr,  E.,  359. 
Dunlap,  K.,  269,  376. 

Ebbinghaus,  H.,  4,  12,  27,  46, 
57,  65  f.,  68  f.,  92,  106,  112, 
117,  153  f.,  160,  174,  187, 
191  f.,  196,  213  f.,  260  ff.,  265, 
294  ff.,  303,  310  ff.,  315,  321, 
324  ff.,  331  ff.,  340,  343  f., 
347,  352,  354  ff.,  358,  360, 
373ff.,  381f.,385,  388f.,  391. 

Eckener,  H.,  269,  382. 

Engel,  G.,  326. 

Exner,  S.,  193,  273,  357,  380. 

Fechner,  G.  T.,  13,  20,  106,  136, 
173,  200  f.,  224,  245,  274,  323, 
343,  358,  361,  368,  372,  379, 
381 

Ferree,  C.  E.,  267  ff.,  274,  377  ff. 

Ferrier,  D.,  186.  355. 

Fichte,  I.  H.,  368. 

Fick,  A.  E.,  274. 

Fite,  W.,  44,  331. 

Fortlage,  K.,  226,  368. 

Frey,  M.  von,  43,  82,  288,  327, 
330  f..  338. 

Frobes,  J.,  327. 

Galloway,  C.  E.,  380. 
Gamble,  E.  A.  McC,  384. 
Gardiner,  H.  N.,  385. 
Gebsattel,  E.  von,  331. 
Geiger,  M.,  254,  258,  262,  332, 
374  f. 


393 


394 


INDEX 


Gcissler,  L.  R.,  267  f,,  275,  376, 

382. 
Gent,  W.,  167,  350. 
Geyser,  J.,  361. 
Goethe,  J.  W.  von,  135. 
Golclscheider,    A.,    17,    88,   333, 

339. 
Golgi,  C,  18. 
Giirber,  A.,  274. 
Gurewitsch,  A.,  147,  346. 

Hamilton,  W.,  75,  172,  334,  352, 

368. 
Hamlin,  A.  J.,  361,  382. 
Hammer,  B.,  272,  377,  379. 
Hayes,  S.  P.,  47,  55,  165,  349. 
Heinrich,  W.,  269  f.,  342,  376  ff. 
Heller,  T.,  193,  357. 
Helmholtz,  H.  L.  F.  von,  8,  173, 

196,  225,  273,  327,  358,  368, 

379. 
Henri,  V.,  384. 

Hcrbart,  J.  F.,  227,  255,  286  f. 
Hering,  E.,  7,  20,  324. 
Hess,  C,  377  f. 
Hillebrand,  F.,  20,  324  f. 
Hoffding,  H.,  153,  347. 
Hollands,  E.  H.,  38  f.,  76,  329, 

334. 

Irons,  D.,  35. 

Jackson,  G.  L.,  380. 

James,  W.,  14,  34  ff.,  153  f.,  160, 
190,  196,  210,  228,  239  ff.,  256, 
265,  306  f.,  323,  327.  329,  333, 
345,  352  f.,  356  ff.,  369,  374  ff. 

Janet,  P.,  280,  384. 

Jastrow,  J.,  198,  358. 

Jodl,  F.,  153  f.,  347. 

Johnston,  C.  H.,  48  f.,  51  ff.,  55, 
332. 

Judd,  C.  H.,  187,  356. 

Kastner,  A.,  369. 

Kafka,  G.,  372. 

Kant,  I.,  174  f.,  286,  354. 

Kelchner,  M.,  92,  340,  349,  384. 

Kiesow,  F.,  100,  341. 

Killen,  B.,  380. 

Kohn,  H.  E.,  223,  306  f.,  368, 

389. 
Kozaki,  N.,  361. 


Kraepelin,  E.,  332,  382. 

Kries,  J.  von,  359. 

Krueger,  F.,  339,  360. 

Kiilpe,  O.,  20  f.,  41  f.,  46  f.,  57  f., 
61  ff.,  66,  68  ff.,  75,  84  f..  Ill, 
117,  129  f.,  153,  196,  199,209, 
212,  221  ff.,  276,  321,  324, 
326  f.,  330  ff.,  340,  347,  352, 
354  ff.,  358  f.,  360  f.,  367,  369, 
382,  386. 

Ladd,  G.  T.,  42,  62,  65,  152,  154, 

184  f.,  330  f.,  333,  347,  355. 
Lagerborg,  R.,  45,  331,  338,  385. 
Lange,  C.,  34  f.,  160. 
Lange,  N.,  267,  382. 
Lehmann,  A.,  66  ff.,  76,  153, 

203,  267,  273  f.,  332  ff.,  347, 

358,  379  f. 
Leibniz,  G.  W.  von,  225. 
Lewes,  G.  H.,  387,  390. 
Lipps,  T.,  33,61,  153  f..  331  ff., 

347,  349  f.,  357  f.,  361. 
Lotze,  R.  H.,  28,  116  f.,  206,  226, 

327,  344,  359,  368. 

McDougall,  W.,  310,  331,  358, 

373,  380,  382,  388. 
Mach,  E.,  8,  215  f.,  273,  322. 
Major,  D.  R.,  347. 
Marshall,  H.  R.,  85,  224  f.,  228, 

338  f.,  368. 
Marty,  A.,  386. 
Meinong,  A.,  322,  332. 
Merkel,  J..  289,  385. 
Memnann,  E.,  71,  73 ff.,  159, 187, 

331,  333  f.,  349,  352,  381. 
Meyer,  G.  H.,  342. 
Meyer,  M.,  323. 
Mill,  J.,  172,  352. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  352. 
Mittenzwey,  K.,  369. 
Morgan,  C.  L.,  227  f.,  230,  240, 

368. 
Moyer,  F.  E.,  382. 
Muller,  G.  E.,  10,  20  f.,  191,  195 

f .,  210,  236,  323  ff.,  354,  356 ff., 

361,  366  f..  378. 
Muller,  J.,  379. 
Muller,  R.  F.,  333. 
Miinsterberg,  H.,  215,  323,  333. 

358,  360  f.,  369,  382  ff. 


INDEX 


395 


Nagel,  W.,  44,  107  f.,  159,  330  f., 
343. 

Oehm,  A.,  280  f.,  384. 

Orth,  J.,  44,  46  f.,  ol,  55,  57, 

135,  154,  160,  330  fif.,  350,  385, 

389. 

Pace,  E.  A.,  269,  273,  275,  378, 
382. 

Passy,  J.,  326. 

Paulhan,  F.,  375. 

Peters,  W.,  383. 

Pierce,  A.  H.,  44,  331. 

Pillsbury,  W.  B.,  5,  174,  183, 
187,  191,  193,  196,  206,  212. 
214,  218,  243,  273,  281,  296, 
298,  311  f.,  322,  330,  333  ff., 
355  ff.,  360,  380,  382  f.,  388  ff. 

Pilzecker,  A.,  356  ff.,  366. 

Plainer,  E.,  359. 

Plato,  82. 

Preyer,  W.,  273. 

Quandt,  J.,  369. 

Rehmke,  J.,  56,  153,  329,  331  f., 

347. 
Ribot,  T.,  101,  184,  342,  355. 
Royce,  J.,  147,  149,  347. 

Sanford,  E.  C,  379. 

Saxinger,  R.,  39,  76,  330,  332, 

334. 
Schultze,  F.  E.  O.,  332,  334,  313. 
Schumann,  F.,  236,  366  ff.,  369, 

372 
Scripture,  E.  W.,  100,  340. 
Seashore,  C.  E.,  377  f. 
Sharp,  S.  E.,  376. 
Sigwart,  C,  352. 
Slaughter,  J.  W.,  269,  273  f.,  377, 

379 
Smith",  W.  G.,  384. 
Sollier,  P.,  328,  332  ff.,  338,  340. 
Solomons,  L.  M.,  180,  354. 
Squire,  C.  S.,  356. 
Stein,  G.,  180,  354. 
Stem,  L.  W.,  192  f.,  357,  369. 
Stevens,   H.   C,   252,   346,   374, 

380   384 
Storring,   G.   W.,  45,    160,  332, 

336,  349. 


Stout,  G.  S..  35,  185,  295  f.,  298, 
328,  355,  386. 

Stumpf,  C,  26,  33,  35  f.,  40,  45, 
57,  63  ff.,  82  ff.,  136,  153  f., 
160,  185,  193  f.,  210,  214  ff., 
228,  242,  245,  273,  278,  297, 
323  f.,  326,  328  ff.,  332  f., 
338  ff.,  355,  357  f.,  360,  367, 
372,  379,  383. 

Sully,  J.,  46,  331,  334. 

Swift,  E.  J.,  382. 

Talbot,  E.  B.,  322,  382. 
Taylor,  R.  W.,  380. 
Tchisch,  W.  von,  255  f.,  374  f. 
Tetens,  J.  N.,  385. 
Thomson,  J.  J.,  385. 
Torok,  L.,  324. 
Toulouse,  E.,  383. 
Tsukahara,  M.,  361. 
Tucker,  A.,  226,  354,  368. 

Urbantschitsch,  V.,  269. 

Valle,  G.  della,  371. 

Vaschidc,  N.,  383. 

Vogt,    O.,    100,    147,    160,    340, 

347,  349. 
Vogt,  R.,  382. 

Ward,  J.,  75,  223  ff.,  299  f.,  330, 
334 

Washburn,  M.  F.,  323,  325.  329, 
385. 

Webor,  E.  H.,  193,  214,  276,  364. 

Whipple,  G.  M.,  385. 

Wiersma,  E.,  267  f.,  281,  384. 

Wirth,  W.,  332,  369. 

W^undt,  W.,  5,  33,  35  f.,  38  f., 
46  f.,  56.  63,  75  f.,  105  f., 
125  ff.,  171,  173  f.,  182,  199, 
206,  210  f.,  213,  225  f.,  230  f., 
233  ff.,  239,  257,  261,  263  ff., 
276,  286,  290.  295,  297,  299, 
301  ff.,  305  ff.,  312,  314  ff., 
321  ff.,  330  ff..  345  f.,  348  ff., 
352f.,  355ff.,  360,  368  f.,  371, 
373  ff.,  382,  385,  387,  389  ff. 

Ziegler,  T.,  85,  339. 
Ziehen,  T.,  84,  338,  384. 
Zoneff,  P.,  71,  73  f.,  334,  381. 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 

References  to  the  notes  begin  with  page  321. 


Accentuation,  subjective,  234  f., 
239. 

Accommodation,  attentional, 
242    ff.,    251,    371. 

Accommodation,  peripheral, 
as  condition  of  clearness, 
199,  205,  243  f.,  246,  266; 
as  concerned  in  fluctuation, 
268  fiF.;  Heinrich's  theory  of 
auditory,  377. 

Action,  psychology  of,  297  f., 
299  f . ;  see  Reaction. 

Action,  reflex,  299  f.,  387;  see 
Reflex   arc. 

Activity,  feeling  of,  147,  155, 
306  ff.,  389  f. 

Adaptation,  sensory,  40,  65  ff., 
69,  265  f.,  367;  range  of, 
265  f. ;  ^^sual,  in  phenomena 
of  fluctuation,  270  f.,  378; 
affective,  40,  65  ff.,  100; 
see  Habituation. 

^Esthetics,  103,  126  f.,  1.30,  343, 
348. 

Affection,  definition  of,  33; 
criteria  of,  33  ff.,  77  f.,  127  f., 
153,  289  f.,  292  f.,  335  f. 
(see  Antagonism;  Clearness, 
lack  of;  Habituation;  In- 
tensity, central ;  Non-local- 
isableness;  Subjectivity) ; 

attributes  of,  84,  128;  condi- 
tions of,  in  Wundt's  system, 
140  ff. ;  manifold  qualities  of, 
in  Wundt's  system,  128, 
150  ff.,  290  f.;  as  relation 
of  sensation  to  consciousness, 
131,  154;  as  undifferentiated 
conscious  process,  291  f. ; 
and  sensation,  33  ff. ;  and 
attention,  294  ff.,  296  ff., 
334   f.;     see   Feeling. 


Affective  judgment,  analysis  of, 
163  ff.  (pleasantness-un- 
pleasantness, 165;  excite- 
ment-depression, 165  f.; 
ten.sion-relaxation,      166). 

After-image,  negative,  69, 271  f . ; 
of  feeling,  290. 

Algedonic  quality,  85;  sensa- 
tion, 338;  see  Gefuhlsemp- 
findungen. 

Alimentary  sensations,  18  f., 
57  f.,   329. 

Anaesthesia,  116. 

Analgesia,   115. 

Antagonism,  qualitative,  as  cri- 
terion of  affection,  56  ff., 
77  f.,  128,  289,  293,  332  f., 
335. 

Apperception,  75  f.,  1.50,  233  f., 
2.37  f.,  2.55  ff.,  263,  295,  297, 
303  ff.,  312  f.;  and  cognition, 
237;  and  reproduction,  256, 
374  f. ;    see  Attention. 

Apperception  waves,  265,  381; 
see  Fluctuation. 

Arousal,   feeling  of,   147. 

Associability,  as  test  of  atten- 
tion, 279. 

Association,  general  law  of, 
262;  indissoluble,  96;  medi- 
ate, 227;  experiments  on, 
100,  172,  354. 

Associative  consciousness,  264. 

Attention,  problem  of,  5,  172  ff., 
209  f.,  353;  popular  psy- 
chology of,  181  f.,  301  f., 
311;  Wundt's  analj'sis  of, 
182  f.;  distribution  of,  26 
(see  Levels,  Range) ;  practi- 
cal importance  of,  181  f. ; 
conditions  of,  294  ff.,  312  f. 
(see  Clearness,  conditions  of); 


397 


398 


INDEX 


fluctuation  of,  199  (see  Fluc- 
tuation); genesis  of,  313  f.; 
theories  of,  168,  184  ff., 
388  f.  (aflfectional,  184;  of 
psychical  energy,  184  f . ;  cona- 
tive  or  motor,  185,  309  ff., 
390 ;  of  reenforcement,  185  f . ; 
of  inhibition,  186);  laws  of, 
207  ff.,  251  ff.  (clearness  as 
attribute,  211  ff. ;  two  levels, 
220  ff. ;  accommodation  and 
inertia,  242  ff.;  prior  entry, 
251  ff. ;  limited  range,  259  ff. ; 
temporal  instability,  263  ff.; 
degrees  of  clearness,  276  ff.); 
forms  of,  311  ff.  (active  or 
voluntary,  311  ff.,  386,  391; 
passive  or  involuntary,  311  ff., 
386,  391;  secondary  passive, 
309,  313  f.;  reflex  or  mech- 
anised, 298  f.,  308);  and 
apperception,  150,  168;  and 
intensity  of  sensation,  212  ff., 
219  f.,  361  ff.,  366  f.;  and 
affection,  294  ff.,  296  ff., 
334  f.;  and  will,  297  ff., 
306,  387,  391;  and  interest. 
294  ff.,  386;  in  experimental 
psychology,  172  ff.,  353;  as 
sensory  clearness,  69,  182  ff. 
(see  Clearness) ;  as  motor 
reaction,  309  ff.,  390;  as 
total  consciousness,  181,  296 
ff.,301  f.,  313  f.,315;  not  a 
sporadic  formation,  301  f. 
(see  Inattention) ;  directed 
upon  feehng,  69  ff.  (see 
Clearness,   lack   of). 

Attitudes,  organic  (receptive, 
elaborative,    executive),    310. 

Attributes  of  sensation,  4,  8  ff., 
57  f.,  127,  321,  322  f.,  337; 
definition  of,  8,  84  f.;  in- 
separable, 8,  23,  85;  in- 
dependentlv  variable,  9  f., 
16,  20,  2^1  f.;  intensive, 
10  f.,  19  ff.,  183;  qualitative, 
10  ff. ;  of  the  second  order, 
26  f.;  of  affection,  84,  127  f.; 
of  image,   337. 

Auditor}'-  sensations,  12  ff., 
16,  20,  25  f.,  44,  94;    pain, 


94;  intensity  and  clearness 
of,  217  f.;  fluctuation  of, 
267,  269  f.,  272,  376,  379; 
see  Noise;  Tone,  sensations 
of. 

Ausfragemethode,   50  f.,   332. 

Automatism,  in  introspection, 
179  f. ;  normal  motor,  180, 
375;  of  attention,  298  f.,  308. 

Biology,   300,   387  f. 

Blickfeld  and  Blickpunkt,  meta- 
phor of,  73,  225  f.,  234,  236, 
368. 

Blood-pressure  (Traube-Hering 
waves),   273  f. 

Cessation  of  stimulus,  as  condi- 
tion of  clearness,  199  ff. 

Chroma,   12,  25. 

Clearness,  as  intensive  attri- 
bute, 11,  24  ff.,  28  f.,  173, 
183  f.,  209  f.,  211  ff.,  219  f., 
285,  361  ff.,  372;  as  starting- 
point  of  a  psychology  of 
attention,  182  ff.,  209  f., 
211  ff.,  285,  300,  305,  369  f.; 
phj^siological  and  psy- 
chological, 222  f.,  370;  con- 
ditions of,  188  ff.,  231,  241  f., 
243  f.,  246,  266,  359  (in- 
tensity, 188  ff.;  quality, 
190  f. ;  temporal  relations 
of  stimulus,  191  ff.;  move- 
ment, 193  ff.;  novelty,  195  f.; 
contents  of  consciousness, 
196  ff. ;  peripheral  accom- 
modation, 199;  cessation  of 
stimulus,  199  ff.;  as  im- 
pressing nervous  system, 
204  f.,  206,  220,  298  f.,  300; 
as  objective  and  subjective, 
206;  see  Distraction);  dif- 
ference of,  at  two  leA^els  of 
consciousness,  229;  at  same 
level  of  consciousness,  229  ff. 
(lower,  230  ff. ;  upper,  233  ff.) ; 
measurement  of  degrees  of, 
276  ff.,  309;  variation  of, 
with  degree  of  pleasantness- 
unpleasantness,  302 ;  and  cog- 
nition, 238  f.,  244. 


INDEX 


399 


Clearness,  lack  of,  as  char- 
acter of  aflcction,  09  ff., 
77  f.,   180,  289,  292,  334  ff. 

Cognition,  238  f.,  240  f.,  244, 
323  f.,  369. 

Colour,  sensations  of,  11  f., 
19,  25,  27;  and  attention,  26, 
190. 

Colour  feelings,  105  ff.,  126  f., 
134,    148   f.,    163   ff. 

Colour  pyramid,   12,  325. 

Complication,  process  of,  254  f. 

Complication  experiment,  254 
ff. ;    inversion  of,  252  ff. 

Concentration,  tests  of,  279  ff. 

Consciousness,  area  of,  220  f.; 
span  of,   233   ff.,   369. 

Contents,  conscious,  as  condi- 
tion of  clearness,  196  ff., 
205. 

Contrast,  53  f.,  61,  63,  89,  92  f., 
290. 

Curves  of  affective  judgment, 
in  method  of  impression, 
162   ff.,   341. 

Cutaneous  sensations,  16  ff., 
25,  87  ff.,  93  f.,  326;  af- 
fective tone  of,  91  ff. ;  see 
Pain,  Temperature,  Touch. 

Depression,  feeling  of,  145  ff., 
160,  163  ff.,  322;  and  at- 
tention,  335. 

Differences,  individual,  172,  190, 
216,  228,  352. 

Differences,  maximal,  as  char- 
acteristic of  sensation,  56, 
127. 

Dimensions  of  feehng,  128,  131, 
133  ff.,  141;  guaranteed  by 
emotive  classification,  135  f. ; 
by  method  of  expression, 
136  ff. ;  by  time-relations, 
138  ff.;  by  conditions  of 
affection,  140  ff. ;  question 
of  spatial,  142  ff.;  nomen- 
clature of,  145  ff. ;  number 
of,  147  ff.;  experimental 
investigation  of,  161  ff.,  350. 

Discrimination,  sensible,  as  test 
of  attention,  279,  383;  and 
motor    theory    of    attention. 


310;  and  affective  discrimi- 
nation, 341, 

Displacement,  temporal,  251  f., 
255  ff. 

Disposition,  conscious,   149. 

Disposition,  psychophysical, 
see  Predisposition. 

Distraction,  as  condition  of 
maximal  clearness,  203,  278  f. 

Distraction,  method  of,  216  ff., 
252,  277  f.,  281,  361  ff., 
382  f.;  inverse  method  of, 
232   f 

Duration,  11,  22  ff.,  28  f.,  189 
f.,  204,  325,   327,   380. 

Economy,  principle  of  scientific, 
86   f.,    112,    114. 

Effort,  203,  278  f.,  308  ff., 
311  f. ;  see  Kinsesthetic  sen- 
sations. Strain. 

Eindringlichkeit,  24,  26  f.,  191, 
326   f.,   356   f. 

Einsiellung,  243,   373. 

Element,  psychological,  4,  7  f., 
37  f.;  psychophysical,  7  f.; 
'sensational,'    327. 

Emotion,  James-Lange  theory 
of,  34  f.,  160;  Stumpf's 
theory  of,  35,  63,  86;  in 
Wundt's  system,  128  f.,  135  f. ; 
classification  of,  136,  139; 
and   feeling,   33   ff.,   54,   328. 

Empfindungsiust,  45,  160  f.,  336. 

Epistemology  and  psychology, 
36  f.,  81. 

Exaltation,  feeling  of,  and  at- 
tention, 335. 

Excitement,  feeling  of,  128, 
138,  140  f.,  145  f.,  149  f., 
156,    160,    163   ff.,    322. 

Experiment,  definition  of,   175. 

Expression,  method  of,  70,  136 
ff.,  160,  281  f.,  384. 

Extension,  11,  22  ff.,  28  f., 
63  f.,  189  f.,  204,  325  ff.; 
range   of   attribute,   25,    326. 

Eye  movement,  in  fluctuation 
experiments,  270  f.,  378. 

Faculties,  psychology  of,  181, 
286  f. 


400 


INDEX 


Feeling,  problem  of,  4  f.,  33  ff., 
125  ff.,  285  ff.;  intellectu- 
alistic  view  of,  285  ff. ;  af- 
fectional  view  of,  286  f. ; 
tridimensional  theory  of,  5, 
36,  128  f.,  291;  sensation- 
alistic  theory  of,  see  Ge- 
fiihlsempjindungen ;  author's 
theory  of,  291  ff.,  385,  388; 
always  present  in  conscious- 
ness? 116  f.;  faculty  of, 
286;  dimensions  of,  128, 
131,  133  ff.,  141  (see  Dimen- 
sions) ;  objectification  of, 
330  f. ;  as  reaction  of  ap- 
perception upon  sensory  con- 
tents, 75,  294  f.,  303  ff., 
306,  388  f.;  as  condition  of 
attention,  191,  294  ff.,  365  f.; 
as  condition  of  action,  297  f . ; 
as  dependent  on  quality  of 
sensation,  117  f.;  and  emo- 
tion, 33  ff.,  54,  328;  and 
organic  sensation,  293,  328  f., 
385;    and  will,  306. 

Feelings  form  a  single  system, 
128;  mixed,  45  ff.,  61,  293, 
333,  335;  relational,  179, 
240;  coexistence  of,  in  con- 
sciousness, 39,  53  f. ;  fusion 
of,  38  f.,  42,  .52,  1.56  f.;  in- 
hibition of,  52  f. ;  reenforce- 
ment  of,  52 ;  summation  of,  52. 

Fluctuation  of  attention,  199, 
263  ff.,  281,  376  ff.,  381   f. 

Focal  processes,  26,  227  f., 
240  f.,   307. 

Fringe,  psychical,  179,  239  ff., 
370. 

Fusion,  affective,  38  f.,  42,  52, 
1.56  f.;  sensory,  303;  of 
sensation  and  affective  tone. 
97;  of  taste  and  smell, 
97  ff.;    tonal,  97  f.,  156. 

Gefiihlsempfindunge?!,  64,  81  ff., 

286,  288',  290,  294. 
Gestaltqualitat,  339. 
Grey,  MuUer's  endogenous,  21  f. 

Habit,  introspective,  179,  197; 
scientific,   198;    implies  fore- 


gone attention,  300,  357, 
375. 

Habitual,  indispensableness  of 
the,    67    f.,    203. 

Habituation,  effect  of,  192; 
as  characteristic  of  feeling, 
65  ff.,   77,   333  f. 

Hallucination,  affective,  64,  102 
f.,  104,  108;  of  pain,  102  f., 
104;  in  comph  cation  experi- 
ment, 256,  375. 

Hue,   12,  25. 

Hunger,  18  f.,  57,  59,  329. 

Hypnosis,  100,  371. 

Ideas,  intensive,  spatial  and 
temporal,   142. 

Idiocy,  371. 

Illusions,  optical,  373,  382. 

Image,  3,  61  f.,  102,  104,  342  f.; 
affective,  101  ff.,  110,  290, 
341  f. ;  of  weak  sensations, 
106  f.;  of  momentary  sensa- 
tions, 102,  342;  fluctuation 
of,  382;  and  sensation,  63  f., 
321,  337. 

Imagery,  organic,  102,  343. 

Impression,  method  of,  50  f., 
105,  148,  152,  161  ff.,  350; 
twofold    control    by,    162   f. 

Inattention,  301  f.,  381,  383; 
field   of,   224  f. 

Independence,  movement  for 
affective,  286  ff. 

Indifference,  67,  85  f.,  116  f., 
302. 

Inertia  of  attention,  242,  245  f., 
251,  371  f. 

Inhibition,  feeling  of,  128,  138, 
145  f. ;  in  theory  of  attention, 
305,  389;  of  feelings,  52  f. 

Instinct,    191,   298.   308. 

Intellectualism,   286   f. 

Intensitv,  central,  as  character- 
istic  of  feeling,  61    ff.,   333. 

Intensity,  definition  of,  10,  24; 
independent  variability  of, 
20;  of  visual  sensations,  20 
ff. ;  a  'quahtative'  attri- 
bute? 28;  doctrine  of  sensi- 
ble, 173;  as  condition  of 
feeling,   131,   141;    as  condi- 


INDEX 


401 


tion  of  clearaess,  188  flF., 
204,  356;  in  classification 
of  emotions,  136;  and  clear- 
ness, 211  ff.,  218  ff.,  361  ff. 

Interest  and  attention,  294  ff., 
386. 

Interests,  permanent,   197  f. 

Intervals,  repeated,  affective 
tone  of,   163  ff. ;  see  Purity. 

Introspection,  63,  77,  132,  144 
ff.,  151,  162  f.,  165  f.,  197, 
225,  235  f.,  254  f.,  262,  264  f., 
277,  281,  293,  306  ff.,  333, 
336,  354,  362,  369,  381  ff.; 
compared  with  inspection, 
175  ff.,  355;  interpretation 
of,  332,  360  f. 

Itch,  17,  90  f.,  324. 

Kinaesthetic  sensations,  18,  25, 
58  f.,  309;  see  Effort,  Strain, 
Touch. 

Lability  of  attention,  242,  264, 
276. 

Law  of  continuity,  224  f.; 
of  indispensableness  of  the 
habitual,  67  f.,  203;  of 
reduction  and  expansion  of 
conscious  processes,  34,  313  f., 
390;  of  tedimn,  68;  Weber's, 
214,   218,   276,   364. 

Laws  of  attention,  211  ff.,  251 
ff. ;     see   Attention. 

Levels  of  consciousness,  220  ff., 
301  f.,  305,  370  f. 

Limen,   temporal,   246,   251   f. 

Local  sign,  43  f.,  55. 

Localisation,  as  characteristic 
of  sensations,   43  ff.,   303. 

Marginal  processes,  26,  227  f., 
231,  240  f.,  309. 

Measurement  of  attention,  276 
ff. ;  by  introspective  dis- 
tinction of  degrees  of  clear- 
ness, 277  f . ;  by  measure- 
ment of  effort,  278  f.,  309; 
see  Tests. 

Memory,  172,  365  f.;  see 
Image. 

2d 


Movement,  as  condition  of 
clearness,  193  ff.,  205;  sensa- 
tions of,  193. 

MV,  as  measure  of  attention, 
280  f.,  384. 

Nausea,  18  f. 

Need,  organic,  68,  203. 

Noise,  sensation  of,  16,  20,  270, 
379. 

Non-localisableness,  as  char- 
acteristic of  feeling,  43  ff., 
77  f.,  331  f.,  335  f.;  external, 
43  ff.;    internal,   45  ff. 

Novelty,  as  condition  of  clear- 
ness, 195,  205;  as  non- 
associatedness,    195,    357    f. 

Nuancirung  of  pleasantness- 
unpleasantness,   160. 

Objectivity,  as  characteristic 
of  sensation,  36  ff.;  of  feel- 
ing, 330  f. 

Observation,  definition  of,  175. 

Odours,  as  distracting  stimuli, 
278,  361;    see  Smell. 

Opposites,  movement  between, 
see  Antagonism. 

Organic  sensations,  18  f.,  25  f., 
38  f.,  44,  54,  57,  93  ff.,  158  ff., 
349;  locahsation  of,  44,  330 
f. ;  affective  tone  of,  126; 
and  attention  190;  and  the 
Wundtian  dimensions,  160  f., 
163,  301  f.;  and  feeling,  293, 
328  f.,  385. 

Organs,  peripheral,  of  feeling, 
292. 

Pain,  sensation  of,  17  ff.,  25  f., 
43,  87  ff.,  92  ff.,  292,  324; 
quality  of,  17  f.,  88  f.;  Ein- 
dringlichkeit  of,  26,  190,327; 
affective  tone  of,  89,  92  f.; 
as  unpleasantness,  82  f.,  87 
ff.,  334;  from  intensive  stim- 
ulation of  pressure,  tempera- 
ture,  sight,  and   hearing,  94. 

Paired  comparisons,  method  of, 
161   f. 

Parallelism,  psychophysical, 
225,  387. 


402 


INDEX 


Partial  feelings,  155  ff.;  tones, 
196  f. 

Perseverationstendenz,  246,   373. 

Physiologj^  4,  206,  256,  310  f.; 
and  psychology.  286. 

Pitch,  tonal,  12  ff.,  26  f. 

Pleasantness,  qualitative  dif- 
ferentiation of,  160  f.,  293, 
336  f.,  349. 

Pleasantness-unpleasantness,  33, 
125  ff.,  290  ff.,  298,  308  f., 
329,  341;  see  Affection,  Di- 
mensions,  Feeling. 

Pleasure,  sensation  of,  81  f., 
83,  93,  96;  cutaneous,  93; 
organic,  83,  93,  96;  due  to 
intensive  stimulation,  95  f.; 
as  absence  of  pain,  82. 

Practice,    192,   252,   277,   375. 

Predisposition,  psychophysical, 
196,  199,  202,  205  f.,  209, 
243,  246,  2.52,  266;  and 
fluctuation  of  attention,  275. 

Pressure,  sensations  of,  17  ff., 
25;    pain,  94. 

Prick,  sensation  of,  17,  88, 
90  f.,  108;  image  of,  102,  342. 

Prior  entry,  law  of,  251   ff. 

Psychology,  descriptive,  83,  99, 
111,  113,  266,  312,  314  f.; 
experimental,  171  f.,  206,  210, 
266  f.,  274,  286,  288  f.,  316  f.; 
explanatory,  288,  313,  315; 
genetic,  113,  11.5,  118  ff.,  126, 
206,  381,  387  (of  feeling, 
291  ff. ;  of  refiex  action,  299  f., 
387;  of  attention,  313  f.); 
physiological,  288;  syste- 
matic, 3,  73,  129  ff.,  142,  154, 
158f.,  167f.,  282,  296ff.,  314, 
353;  of  feeling,  4  f.,  285  ff.,  291 
ff. ;  of  attention,  5,  313  f. ;  and 
epistemology,  36  f.,  81. 

Psychophysics,  7  f.,  21  f.,  90, 
97  ff.,  101,  112  ff.,  118,  189, 
206,  289,  336,  354. 

Pulse,  and  fluctuation  of  at- 
tention, 273. 

Purity,  feeling  of  tonal,  119, 
339,   360. 

Puzzle  picture,  observation  of, 
228  f.,   370  f. 


Qualities  of  affection,  inWundt's 
theory,  150  ff.;  see  Affec- 
tion, Pleasantness. 

Quality,  definition  of,  10,  24, 
28 ;  of  visual  sensations,  1 1  f . ; 
of  auditory  sensations,  12  ff. ; 
of  pressure,  17;  of  pain, 
17  f.,  88  f.  (see  Pain);  of 
kinsesthetic  sensations,  18  f. ; 
of  alimentary  sensations,  18 
f. ;  of  smell,  16,  19;  of  taste, 
16,  19;  algedonic,  85;  as 
criterion  of  sensation,  27  ff. ; 
as  condition  of  feeling,  131, 
141;  as  condition  of  clear- 
ness, 190  f.,  204;  in  classi- 
fication of  emotions,  136; 
doctrine    of    sensible,    173. 

Quiescence,  feeling  of,  147,  150. 

Range  of  attention,  259  ff., 
370,  376;  as  test  of  degree 
of  concentration,  279. 

Reaction,  simple,  242,  252, 
280,    308,    371. 

Reflex  arc,  310,  390. 

Reizrnethode,  160,  350. 

Relaxation,  feehng  of,  128, 
138,  140  f.,  145  ff.,  160, 
163  f.,  166,  322;  and  at- 
tention, 335. 

Repetition,  as  condition  of 
clearness,   191  f.,  204. 

Respiration,  and  fluctuation 
of  attention,   273,   379. 

Restlessness,  feeling  of,   147. 

Retrospection,  as  psychologi- 
cal method,  178  f. 

Rise  of  sensations,  243,  245, 
251   f.,   372. 

Sensation,  attributes  of,  4,  8  ff. 
(see  Attributes) ;  character 
of,  as  elementary  process, 
4,  14  f.,  323  f.;  central 
concomitant,  96,  112  f.,  115 
ff.;  centrally  excited,  333; 
criterion  of,  27  ff.;  single, 
coextensive  with  conscious- 
ness, 55;  in  psychology  and 
psychophysics,  7  f. ;  and 
image,  63  f.,  321,  337. 


INDEX 


403 


Sensationalism,  286,  288;  see 
Gefuhlsempfindungcn. 

Sensations,  number  of  discrimi- 
nable,  27;  focal  and  mar- 
ginal, 26,  227  f.,  231,  240  f., 
307,  309;  alimentary,  etc., 
see  Alimentary  sensations,  etc. 

Sense-feelings,    83,    131. 

Sensitivity,  as  test  of  con- 
centration, 279,  383. 

Smell,  quality  of,  16,  19;  pene- 
tratingness  of,  26,  190,  326; 
localisation  of,  43  f. ;  af- 
fective tone  of,  126,  331;  as 
distraction,   278,   361. 

Space,   psychology   of,   209. 

Stimmungslust,  45,  160  f.,  336, 
349. 

Sting,  sensation  of,  17,  88,  90  f., 
108;    image  of,    102,   342. 

Strain,  sensation  of,  18,  278, 
307,  312;  feeling  of,  322, 
335   (see  Tension). 

Stream  of  thought,  228,  376. 

Streaming  phenomenon,  271. 

Strcben-Widerstrehen,   147. 

Strcbungsgefilhl,  147. 

Subconscious,  the,  220,  224, 
226   f.,   230. 

Subjectivity,  as  character  of 
feeling,  36  ff.,  77  f.,  329  ff., 
335  f.  (as  tendency  to  fusion, 
38  ff. ;  as  individual  variabil- 
ity of  experience,  40;  as 
inability  to  stand  alone  in 
consciousness,  41  f.,  61,  100; 
as  textural  flimsiness,  43, 336). 

Suddenness,  as  condition  of 
clearness,  191  ff.,  195,  204  f. 

Summation  of  stimuli,  192; 
of  feelings,  52. 

Tachistoscopic  experiments, 
231,   237   f.,   259  ff. 

Taste,  quality  of,  16,  19;  im- 
portunity   of,    26,    190. 

Taste  feelings,  100,  126,  331, 
336,   341. 

Tastzuckungen,  268. 

Teleology,  120  f. 

Temperature,  sensations  of,  16, 
25,   57   f.;    pain,   94. 


Temporal  conditions  of  clear- 
ness, 191  ff. 

Temporal  course  of  emotions, 
136;  of  mental  processes, 
138;  as  condition  of  feeling, 
141. 

Tension,  feeling  of,  128,  138, 
140  f.,  145  ff.,  160,  163  f., 
166. 

Terminology  of  Wundt's  theory 
of  feeling,  145  f.;  of  feeling, 
385. 

Tests  of  concentration,  279  ff. 

Theories,  scientific,  48,  198, 
293  f.,    385   f. 

Tickling,    17,   81. 

Time,  psychology  of,  209;  as 
condition  of  feeling,  149  f.; 
as  condition  of  clearness, 
189. 

Tingling,  95. 

Tint,   12,  25. 

Tonal  change,  194;  fusion, 
see  Fusion. 

Tone,  affective,  41,  83  ff., 
125  ff.,  131,  286  f.,  329;  as 
concomitant  sensation,  96, 
112  f.,  115  ff.;  as  pleas- 
antness-unpleasantness, 125 
ff. 

Tone,   organic,   293,   300. 

Tone,  sensations  of,  12  ff., 
25  f.,  119  ff.;  localisation  of, 
44;  affective  tone  of,  105  ff., 
120  f.,  126  f.,  132,  149,  156 
ff.,  163  ff.,  343  f.,  348;  and 
attention,   215   f. 

Tone-colour,   26,   326. 

Tones,  partial,  196  f. 

Total  feeling,  39,  147,  151, 
155  ff.,  346. 

Touch,  25,  326;  affective  tone 
of,  126;  fluctuation  of,  207 
ff.,  272,  376;  direct  and  in- 
direct, 193  f. 

Tranquillisation,  feeling  of,  128, 
140  f.,  145  f.,  156. 

Unconscious,  the,  220  f.,  226  f. 
Unnoticed  stimuli,  199  ff. 
Unpleasantness,   see  Affection, 
Pleasantness-unpleasantness. 


404 


iNDiEX 


Vision,   stereoscopic,   196  f. 

Visual  sensations,  11  ff.,  20  fi., 
24  ff.,  326;  pain,  94;  fluc- 
tuation of,   267,  269  ff.,  378. 

Volume  of  tones,  13  ff.,  26  f., 
324,   327. 

Voluntarism,  psychological,  387. 


Waves,  apperception,  265,  381; 

Traube-Hering,  273  f. 
Weakening     of     sensation     by 

attention,  366  f. 
Will,  and  attention  and  action, 

297   ff.,   306,  387,   391;    and 

feeling,  306. 


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